The past returned
by franknjoe
Summary: With Frank at MIT and Joe at UCLA, it is life as usual for the Hardys. But, a secret from Laura's past returns to put the family in danger. Fenton, Laura, Callie, Vanessa, Frank, Joe.
1. Chapter 1

**I decided to write this story after reading so many stories where all the women, for the most part, stay at home and let the men do the work. First fanfic ever. Let me know what you think!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Frank, Joe, Laura, Fenton, Callie, Vanessa or Nancy Drew. Honestly, I don't even wish that I did. And I don't own Chief Collig, Sam Radley, or Con Riley if I decide to make him show up later.**

Fenton Hardy looked at the sunset, and then turned his attention back to the road.

He was returning to Bayport from a long, hard case in New York City that had lasted three months. He had been called in because a note found at the scene of the homicide was related to one of the cases he worked on when he was a detective at NYPD 28 years ago. The investigation that followed involved hours of painstaking detective work – long stakeouts, interviewing witnesses who wouldn't see a buffalo if it ran in front of them, pouring over telephone logs and tracking down people who did not want to be found. A team of NYPD detectives and him and finally cracked the case, which resulted in the conviction of three politicians from both political parties on corruption charges. The poor bloke who had been killed was a small-time thief who had seen the chance for easy money and underestimated the ruthlessness of people who had been successful at extortion for 30 years and the lengths they would go to keep it a secret.

Shaking his head at the stupidity of some criminals who believed that honor among thieves applied to all thieves and all criminals, Fenton turned his thoughts toward home. He had called Laura before he left the city, and he was expected shortly. With both of their sons in college, and his taking on less cases in expectation of his upcoming retirement, he and Laura now spent more time together, and Fenton enjoyed every minute of it…

* * *

No cases! No parents! I'm free, thought Joe Hardy as he slammed his sociology textbook shut. It's time for me to enjoy the weekend. It wasn't that Joe didn't love either his family or detective work. But, he had also felt the need to get away a little more, and try things on his own. So, at 19, when Frank had gone to MIT a year ago, he had chosen UCLA to get a completely different environment than he was used to where nobody had heard the name Hardy. However, that didn't mean that the itch to investigate wasn't there. When his friend was accused of cheating on a test a few weeks ago, he was able to not only prove that he hadn't done it, but find the real culprit. When Lucy's car got destroyed in a hit and run, he was able to track down the driver with a little help from Frank. And there was the time when… face it Hardy he thought, you'll still be investigating cases for a while yet. At least right now he could devote his attention to his two highest priorities: the latest party and his new motorcycle…

"No, Mr. Hardy that response is incorrect," said the professor glaring at Frank. If you look at the algorithm you will see that... _Damn it_ Frank thought quietly. _I'll never manage this stuff._ Whereas he had always been at the top of his class in Bayport High School, here at MIT amidst all the other brilliant computer science and engineering students, he felt like he was just managing to keep up. He snapped to attention as the professor patiently explained to another student why his response, while not entirely correct, was better than Frank's. _Everyone feels this way, even in their second year of college_, he told himself. But that didn't make him feel better. If he wanted to join the FBI or the NSA after graduation, he would need top grades all four years.

"One last thing," the professor said. "In three weeks, we will have a test on this material and I fully expect that half of you will flunk it unless you don't shape up."

"But we've only been in school for a week!" protested a student who was either especially brave or especially stupid.

"And if you continue like that," said the professor, "you will not be one of the ones who will pass either this test or any pop quiz, and you certainly will not pass my final. Any more questions?"

In the silence that followed, Frank vowed to himself that he would study 24/7 in order to be in the half that passed the test.

As the three men went about their lives, they were unaware of the events that were already happening, and would seriously disrupt not only their plans, but the way they viewed the world. For the Hardy world has typically been composed of men, with the occasional exception of one Nancy Drew. This was about to change.

--

--

The kidnappings were planned down to the last detail. They had to be. These three men had been accustomed to danger. The trick was to get them when they least expected it. Complacency, familiarity with one's surroundings makes one not as watchful... It helped tremendously that they were apart. None of them wanted to take on two Hardys at once. Three was out of the question.

For the youngest Hardy, it was simple as cake. Some guys that he met when school started invited him to a frat party. It was just a matter of making sure he lost track of how much alcohol he was consuming and slipping the pill into his drink. Then, it was perfectly natural for two friends to offer to take him home.

Frank was in the computer lab at MIT on a Saturday night studying for the exam that he had vowed not to fail. _Someone forgot to tell him that we're not in grad school_ he thought and went to get himself a coke as a way of taking a break from studying and give himself more caffeine so he could keep studying. He couldn't help but look around a little more closely at the people in the room. His danger sense, which rarely failed him, was telling him that something was wrong _now_. He glanced cursorily at the young guys who were also unfortunate enough to have eccentric professors, and then looked more closely at the second student. He turned back to the machine and saw the third guy standing there who looked like a freshman.

"Do you have change for a dollar?" the newcomer asked, holding out a dollar in his hand.

Distracted by the presence of the second student who had what looked like too much technology on him to really be a student, he failed to notice that the "student" with the dollar was wearing gloves until after the dollar bill was in his hand. As Frank turned to run, he felt himself slipping into unconsciousness, and could only put out a hand toward the papers on the counter.

_Oh_, thought the man with gloves watching the papers scatter all over the floor. _If this is the kid, I wonder how hard the father is going to be.._.

Fenton Hardy had a few weaknesses. He was damn good at his job and pretending to mug him in an alley or any other dramatic showdown or a similar dollar trick probably wouldn't work. But, he was also a good husband. So, to make him unaware of the danger he faced, his sense of danger had to be blown completely out of proportion.

"I'm sorry," the smooth voice had said over the phone. "There has been an accident. Your wife got hit by a car, and she is in the hospital."

Without thinking about who was calling him, Fenton dropped the phone and ran out to his car that was parked outside of his office. Although he did notice the two men in the parking lot who were watching him, he resolved to find out who they were after he had checked on Laura. Fenton never made it to the hospital. As he drove down the deserted street, four cars blocked him in and the guns in their hands encouraged him to quietly leave the car, and obey the orders to leave the key in the ignition and drink the sweet liquid that caused him to drift off. They were watching too closely for him to even try dropping a business card…

--

He smiled as he looked at the monitor. The father and both sons were unconscious on the three thin mattresses in the Spartan room with only three beds and a naked light bulb in the ceiling. Although the room was soundproof, the bugs in the wall would allow him to hear everything his three prisoners said.

Now for phase two. He looked forward to this most of all

--

Callie woke up in the chair when the phone rang. She had fallen asleep waiting for Frank to come back from the computer lab. Assuming that Frank must be sound asleep, she looked toward the bed and found it empty. _That's odd_, she thought, _maybe he fell asleep in the computer lab_. She reached for the phone to answer it.

"Miss Shaw?" the slick voice on the other end asked.

"Who's this," said Callie, disliking the voice immediately.

"Do you know where Frank is?" asked the voice.

"He's not here," she said assuming it was an obnoxious student calling for Frank to do his homework for him. Even though Frank felt like he was barely getting by, he was actually doing very well at MIT, as evidenced by calls like this. "I suggest you try the computer lab and the study room next to it."

The voice laughed. "I can assure you that he is not there. I would suggest you call _Laura_ and ask her where he is."

"Who's this," demanded Callie, but the line was dead. After looking all over campus and calling public safety to let them know that Frank was probably missing; after calling the Hardy household and getting no answer, she decided to drive directly to Bayport in Frank's car.

Vanessa Bender left the gym pleased with her workout. While Frank had gone to MIT, Joe to UCLA and Callie to study linguistics and philosophy at MIT, she had decided not to go to college. She was working for computer graphing designer for a large firm in Bayport to make sure she'd have enough money to eat and pay rent. She actually spent most of her time studying Aikido with instructors in Bayport. She loved every moment of it.

As she was walking to the bus, a guy walked up to her and shoved a crumpled paper in her hand. "Someone gave me 10 bucks to give this to you," he said gruffly. She looked down and unfolded the paper and read the words**Where's Joe?** When she looked around again, the man who gave her the paper had disappeared. Not even waiting for the bus, and regretting that she didn't have her cell phone, she broke into a run, headed for the Hardy home.

Callie and Vanessa got to the house at the same time. One look at each other's faces said it all - **Frank! Joe!** Although they dealt with the occupational hazards of being in love with two detectives, every time something happened to them, the feelings of anxiety always returned. Their only hope was that either this was some horrible joke or that Fenton would be able to find Frank and Joe in time. Not knowing where Fenton could be, they rushed inside and went straight to the kitchen where they knew they would find Laura Hardy.

Laura Hardy, wearing an apron, looked up from chopping onions. "Hello!" she said. "Vanessa, Callie, I haven't seen you in ages. How are you? What brings you here?"

"Laura, I called. I didn't get an answer so I came straight here," said Callie.

"I took Fenton's suit to the cleaners," said Laura. "Then I went to my friend Mrs. Perkins's house for tea. I just got home a couple minutes ago. What's wrong?" she demanded urgently, noticing that Callie and Vanessa were unusually pale.

"Frank's missing!" cried Callie. "He was studying late last night, but never came back. And then I got a call from someone with a nasty voice suggesting that you should know where he is. I alerted public safety that Frank may be missing and then I came straight here when I couldn't get you on the phone.

"And someone came up to me and put this paper in my hand when I was leaving the gym," said Vanessa picking up the story and putting the "Where's Joe?" paper on the table. "I met Callie at the door."

Laura looked shocked as her eyes scanned the pieces of paper. Oh no, her subconscious whispered. There was only one person she had known who left messages like this. But, that thought instantly vanished. The ringing phone shattered the tense silence. 1…. 2…3…4…

She slowly went to answer it and made sure that the speaker was on. As the wife of one detective and the mother of two, she knew how this all went by now. Somebody would call and demand a ransom, demand the release of a prisoner, or threaten to kill Frank and Joe as revenge for either them or Fenton putting someone in jail. She would try to get as much information from them as possible before getting a hold of both Fenton, Chief Collig and Sam Radley. "Hello, Hardy residence," she said cheerfully, pretending for her son's sakes that everything was fine and she had no sinking feeling in her stomach.

"Hardy residence," the voice sneered, practically spitting the word Hardy. "I believe I am actually talking to Laura Basden." All the color drained from Laura's face as she dropped the phone and fell into the nearest chair.


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's note: Thanks for the first reviews! Thank you also for conveniently disregarding the distance between MIT and Bayport. Nancy Drew will not be making an appearance in the story. Although I am a Nancy fan, this is a Hardy Boys story. I just threw her name in the last chapter. Sorry for misleading people.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Fenton or Laura. **

**Flashback: 27 years ago **

Fenton Hardy reached for the phone as it rang in his small office. He had left the New York City police department three years ago to start work as a private investigator. Although he missed being around other police officers, he enjoyed the freedom that came with his new job. He could travel and was free to take on more challenging cases. During the last year, he had built up a reputation as an upcoming, serious private investigator.

"Hardy Investigations," he said in his abrupt, no-nonsense voice.

"Fenton? It's Matt. I'm wondering if you could take a case for me in Philadelphia."

"Sure," said Fenton relaxing immediately. Matt was a police officer from Philadelphia who he had worked with when the NYPD and Philadelphia police were collaborating on bringing down a drug lord who operated in both New York City and Philadelphia. If Matt was asking for help, it was something quite serious and currently beyond police resources to handle.

"Can you come to Philadelphia soon?" asked Matt. "I know your phones are fine, but I don't want to give details over the phone. You can come directly to the police station and then we can go over to the museum together." Business was slow, so Fenton was soon on his way after making a quick stop at the library to glance at the newspaper and consult a couple of books.

Three hours later Fenton walked into the Philadelphia police station and greeted the officer at the desk. Two minutes later, he had accepted a cup of coffee and started listening to Matt's story.

"Six months ago, a museum in Tucson, Arizona decided to have an auction of valuable art objects to raise money for the museum. Three weeks before the auction, the art was examined by highly qualified experts and pronounced genuine. However, on the day of the auction, one of the collectors who had planned to bid on an item noticed that the particular item was actually a very well-done fake. The curator then had all of the items reexamined and discovered that fully one quarter were fake. The museum was not able to sell those items at all and had to close down."

"As you know Fenton," Matt continued, "there is still a black market for art objects both in this country and abroad. I have no doubt that they were sold to a private collector for hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars. Since that theft six months ago, the thieves have been moving towards the east coast. So far, they have hit Houston, Texas, Atlanta, Georgia, and a couple of museums in Ohio. All the museums were about to close and had decided to auction off their items. The items were examined before the robbery, all by different experts, and declared genuine. But, on the day of the robbery, they were discovered to be fakes. It got out of hand after the last theft in Georgia. The item was actually sold to a collector who had all of his friends over to his house to admire the piece. Well, one of his friends noticed instantly that it was an excellent counterfeit. The museum investigated the buyer and then refunded the money, but it was embarrassing for everyone involved."

"So you need to find out who has access to the museum, and who has the resources to pull this off. The thieves obviously had to have very good inside access since security was not alerted."

"We have a pretty good idea of who it is, we just have no idea how they do it or any way of catching them. Have you heard of the Camarazzi Syndicate?"

Fenton sat up straighter – "_The _Camarazzi Syndicate? I didn't think they were interested in art work. They've usually concentrated on money laundering and blackmail."

"We've received word that they are branching out in their operations. Since the feds have been cracking down on their money laundering schemes, they've had to branch out. It's run by a man named Eric Camarazzi, and we have no idea where he is, who works for him, or what he looks like. One low-level person we caught let us know that they are planning on hitting a museum in Philadelphia -"

"before the auction next month?" Fenton asked, recalling the article he had read in the newspaper.

Matt nodded. "Our informant was too scared to say anything else and committed suicide in jail."

Noticing Fenton's raised eyebrow, Matt nodded. "His cell mate was in jail for not paying child support and has no ties to Camarazzi. The informant was being watched by corrections officials, but he was killed anyway. You can work with officer Young on this, but we don't have enough officers and detectives to spare anyone else."

After briefly considering the case, Fenton Hardy agreed to take it. His competitive and adventurous streak relished the challenge, and he was curious about how these thieves were able to be successful for an extended period of time.

Leaving the police station, Fenton Hardy and officer Young walked over to the museum. Matt had set up an appointment with the curator in a half an hour, and Fenton and officer Young split up to "case the joint", or walk around the inside and outside of the museum thinking about how they would rob it if they ever decided that being detectives didn't pay well enough.

Fenton wandered through the exhibits on glass art, impressionist paintings and modern art. He noticed with approval the museum staff and security guards stationed throughout the museum and the alarm systems wired to the paintings and glass cases. Walking around outside, he noticed that there were plenty of bushes outside the museum for someone to hide, but that was ridiculous as these thieves obviously had superior technology and did not need to resort to hiding in ugly bushes. Fenton then started staring at the roof of the museum looking for ways an intruder could enter.

"Sorry!" Fenton said as he bumped into someone, which wasn't surprising since he was paying more attention to the satellite dish on the nearby building than where he was going.

"That's ok," replied a female voice, "I wasn't paying too much attention either". Fenton looked directly at the person who he had bumped into. He saw a short and slender redhead with vivid blue eyes. Noticing that she had dropped her pen when he bumped into her, he bent down to pick it up.

"Sorry for my clumsiness, I was looking at… the birds." _Why am I so talkative_, he thought, _just move on and get back to the job._

"Don't worry. I was looking at the hydrangea bushes, and I would have bumped into you if you hadn't bumped into me first." She winced._Did I really say that?_ she wondered.

Fenton turned around to look at the hydrangea bushes. Even though they would be great for a criminal to hide in, he didn't think they were all that beautiful. "My sister has a flower garden in upstate New York. But, I don't pay too much attention to flowers myself." The man and the woman looked at each other for a long moment and then abruptly turned away.

"What's your name?" the woman asked him suddenly. "I should be around the museum drawing for my art class during the next few weeks."

"F - Frank," Fenton lied. It wasn't that he thought this woman was dangerous. But, as a private investigator he had no time for any women in his life and the more distance the better. "What's yours?"

"Joie," the woman replied.

"I'd better go," said Fenton, realizing he'd be late for the appointment with the curator. "I have an urgent appointment I can't miss."

"Bye."

"Bye."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Vivid blue eyes looked into emerald green eyes as the two of them exchanged a long kiss. 22 year old Laura Basden broke apart from Thomas Camarazzi and started down the hall. "Your father's waiting for us," she called back to him. "Do you have any idea why?"

"None whatsoever," Thomas said catching up to her. "But we still have 10 minutes before the meeting. Where were we?" He leaned forward to hold her again.

"I'm serious," said Laura looking directly at him. "You know I'm not totally comfortable with this art thing Eric has. I prefer money laundering and blackmail any day. This museum thing is so much more complicated."

"_You know_ the Feds nearly caught us the last time. You're the only reason this organization survived. We need to do something else until the heat goes elsewhere and they forget about us."

"Why?" she demanded, leaning her head against his shoulder. "We have more than enough money. Sure, it is lots of fun pulling jobs and not getting caught, but I'd much rather do something we are more comfortable with instead of… art. It's so much trouble to sell it afterwards."

"No worries," said Thomas putting both of his arms around her. "This Philadelphia job will be the last one, I'm sure. Dad's got enough artifacts and cash to last him a lifetime." Several minutes later he whispered "And now, we'd better go or we'll really be late for the meeting."

Approaching the white house, Thomas and Laura gave the correct password and were admitted to the Camarazzi lair as Thomas only half-jokingly called it. After the butler (armed) escorted Laura and Thomas to the library, Eric Camarazzi put out his cigar and held up a hand for Laura to kiss, which she did, albeit as gently as possible.

"There's been a slight development," Eric said. "Sources say that a police officer named Matt, who obviously has too much time on his hands, got a bee in his bonnet and actually started asking nosy questions about our work." Eric shook his head as if the very idea that someone could do such a thing was ludicrous.

"He would be taken care of, except we have a bigger problem. Matt called in Fenton Hardy."

Laura did not recognize the name, but Thomas did "_The _Fenton Hardy," he demanded? "We avoided New York City altogether because of him and now you are trying to tell me he's _here?_"

"They worked together on a case in New York." He threw down photographs that had been taken from a discreet distance. "New Yorkers have managed to get some photographs of him. He doesn't know these photographs even exist."

_Ohmigod _Laura thought staring at the photographs. _He's the guy who said he was looking at the birds. And he lied to me! If he's as good as they think he is, he probably bumped into me on purpose, already knows who I am and knows that I lied to him too! _She now had a decision to make. She could admit that she already met him and he may be able to identify her again, which, despite her relationship with Thomas, would probably get her either exiled to Siberia or killed. Eric tolerated no slipups or failures. Or, she could play a double game and try to avoid Fenton without letting Thomas or Eric know what she was doing. Fenton did think she was a redhead after all, and as long as she kept her distance and got some contact lenses, she would probably be ok. _Why was it so much easier to think of him as Fenton than Frank? _

She turned her attention back to the conversation in time to see Eric shake his finger at her and say "I don't want any problems with Fenton Hardy, Laura. You do this; you will get promoted to be my right hand operative. Even if Hardy figures out what museum we are at, we will be out of this town in six weeks. Everything has gone like clockwork and not even Hardy can stop us now."

For Fenton Hardy's sake, Laura Basden sincerely hoped that Eric Camarazzi was right.

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Later that evening Fenton Hardy poured himself a glass of wine and sat at the small table in his hotel room. The visit with the curator had gone well. Security at the museum would be discreetly increased while he tried to figure out how the Camarazzi gang was managing to rob many museums without detection. As Fenton jotted down ideas, he tried desperately not to think of the woman he had met earlier that day...


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: I own no one!

Vanessa Bender saw Laura fall into the chair and moved quickly to pick up the phone. "Who is this," she demanded, refusing to let any fear enter her voice.

"I suggest you ask Laura," said the man's voice, which Callie recognized as the same one that had called her hours before.

"Thomas!" said Laura. "Leave my sons out of this. Your quarrel is with me"

"Oh no," said Thomas. I'm afraid not. It's also with the husband of yours. Fenton, the man who took you away from me. And those two sons of yours that should have been mine."

"Fenton will find them," said Laura firmly, her faith and confidence renewed. "He will find them no matter what. Frank and Joe will never know about me. Whatever you are going to ask me to do, I won't have to do it."

The laughter the followed chilled Callie to the bone. It wasn't the maniacal laughter that you would expect. Rather, Thomas sounded genuinely amused.

"And where is Fenton now?" he inquired once he had gotten control of himself. "Maybe you'll notice that he hasn't come home?"

"Fenton went to a –" Laura stopped. "You didn't…" she whispered. "If you've hurt him…".

"Mr. Hardy is in good health for time being. I can sense that Miss Shaw and Miss Bender are skeptical. You will find proof of my statements in your mailbox."

Laura covered the phone, turned off the speaker and nodded at Vanessa. Vanessa went out to the mailbox and quickly returned with a piece of paper which she laid on the table. Frank, Joe and Fenton's faces stared up at them. They all looked to be either sleeping peacefully or drugged.

After closing her eyes, taking a deep breath and opening her eyes again, Laura clicked the speaker back on and uncovered the phone. "What do you want?" she said again? Her voice was even calmer than before. But, it had a dangerous undercurrent to it that the two younger women had never previously heard from Laura Hardy.

"Ah now! That is the voice of Laura Basden. She's coming back! She really tried to keep herself hidden by staying out of her husband and son's lives and cleaning suits and sipping tea. " He chuckled and then his voice hardened and he continued "It's what you want. You want your kids and your husband back. That's going to be all that matters to you. As for me, I want you to suffer – especially after the way you helped Hardy bring down me and my father. You had no right to do that."

"Right!" Laura yelled so loudly that Vanessa and Callie both winced. "What right did you have to try to make me into your possession? If this entire phone call is so you can gloat and try to make me feel guilty, I'm afraid you are wasting your time."

"I just enjoy listening to your voice again. To business: Do you remember our last plan? The plan that you and Hardy foiled? The job that we thought was our last job ever? I want you to do it. Do it, and your sons will be returned to you. Refuse to do it, and they will either be forced to work for me or suffer and die."

"A—and Fenton?" Laura said quietly, the energy drained out of her. Callie put her hand over Laura's and gave it a comforting squeeze.

"That will depend on both him and you. If he's willing to give you up, I may be willing to let both of you live. The last job. I want it done by tomorrow night at 11 P.M."

"You know I need more time," said Laura urgently. "I don't exactly have a basement full of that equipment anymore. Give me three days."

"Very well, Laura. But don't think of calling the cops. If you do that, they will know that the wife of the great Fenton Hardy is a criminal. The reputation of your husband would never survive. I"ll call you -"

"Now you listen here," said Vanessa. "I don't care who you are and how you know Mrs. Hardy. But, I do care about Joe. If anything happens to him, you will have me to deal with. Do I make myself clear?"

"I doubt your martial arts skills are a match for my best men, Miss Bender. But, yes you make yourself perfectly clear. I'll call you in three days at 10 PM to make the arrangements." The line disconnected with a click.

"I'm calling the police. I don't care what he says," said Vanessa as she began to dial the phone.

"No," said Laura swiftly unplugging the phone. "If you do that, we will never see any of them again. I know that's the generic threat, but Thomas means it. The police will investigate my past as well when I need to do everything to find Fenton, Frank and Joe."

Getting up from the chair Laura faced the girls and said:

"That's it. You two need to leave. I will handle this myself."

"Absolutely not," said Callie with her eyes blazing. "We love Frank and Joe, we are not letting them get kidnapped because of who you were or what you did 20-something years ago. You've always said we were like your daughters. If that is true, you can't shut us out. We deserve an explanation of what is going on and what this has to do with you. And besides, you heard him. All three of them will be dead unless we do something."

"What do you mean?"

"He hates you. I could hear it in his voice. He wants to see all of us destroyed and will kill them regardless of if we go to the police or if we do what he wants. You've said that we are almost your daughters in-law. Let us help, and at least tell us why we can't go to the police."

"Thomas Camarazzi was my boyfriend," said Laura quietly. "I was a member of the Camarazzi syndicate. We specialized in blackmail and money laundering before moving on to art objects."

Disregarding Callie and Vanessa's open mouths, Laura continued, "Fenton was called in to investigate. He solved the case and we ended up falling in love. However, the crimes were never solved. I thought Thomas was dead, but apparently he isn't. If I call the police now, I may be arrested and Frank, Joe and Fenton will never be found. This isn't about me. If I had to give myself up for the police to find them, I would do it instantly -"

Seeing Callie about to protest she held up a hand. "But I know Thomas. I used to work with him. The police would not find him. Blending in is his specialty. He could be living right down the street from you and you would never know."

"Being in love with a Hardy means taking some risks," said Vanessa quietly. "That didn't include finding out that their mother is actually a criminal."

"I'm the same person you knew yesterday," said Laura. "My name is Laura Hardy. Laura Basden no longer exists. I know how we can get the men we love back, but I can't do it myself. You may not be very happy with me right now, but you need to trust me."

"Fine," said Callie after she and Vanessa had exchanged a very long look. "For the moment. But if I feel the need, I_ will_ call the police. If it means that you go to jail, then you go to jail." The two women stared at each other for a long moment, neither of them breaking eye contact until Laura smiled. "If I were you, I would do the exact same thing for Fenton."

Callie returned the smile as Laura turned around. "Fenton has made his study impossible to bug. We will talk in there."

"So, what exactly are we doing to get them back?" asked Vanessa once they were seated in the study.

"Find Thomas and his base of operations, see if we can convince the bank manager to give us what's in a safe deposit box at the Bayport Memorial savings without stealing it, steal it if we have to, find Frank, Fenton and Joe and rescue them, and then call the police."

"And then what will we do after dinner?" inquired Callie, and then she clapped a hand over her mouth. All three women laughed so hard that Vanessa had tears in her eyes, Callie couldn't breathe and Laura spit out the water she had just drunk.


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: Don't own anybody except Thomas and unidentified goons.

Fenton Hardy slowly opened his eyes. He was lying down on something hard and staring up at a dull grey ceiling. He became aware that his head hurt, and remembered the phone call, the terrifying thought that Laura, the love of his life, was in the hospital and running out to the car… the guns. _Ah,_ he thought ruefully_. I'll try to pay better attention next time. At least the boys are in college and they've kidnapped me and not Joe._

He very slowly sat up. And that's when he noticed both Joe and Frank, seemingly asleep, on the beds next to him. He moved quickly, too quickly, to Joe's side and felt for a pulse.

"Joe!" he yelled. "Can you hear me?" Receiving no response, he used what limited medical knowledge he had to check out both Joe and Frank. Relieved that both boys were only drugged and not otherwise hurt, he ignored the pain in his head and started very slowly walking around their prison. He saw the bugs and the camera almost immediately, and continued walking around the 20X20 room to try to give the impression that he did not notice them. Most detectives would not.

He returned to the beds as both Joe's and Frank's eyes began to flutter. Putting his hands over theirs, he waited for their eyes to focus.

"Wha-" whispered Frank. "Who are…. Dad? What are you doing…" Frank tried to get up and Fenton quickly motioned for him to lay back down. Frank tried to remember what he was last doing

Joe saw the shadowy figure leaning over him. Lifting his arm, he tried to punch the person, but his father caught his fist, and Joe stopped trying to punch him. "Easy Joe," he said softly. "You've had a long day."

"What time is it?" Joe mumbled. "I never get up before noon."

Fenton snorted. "Well, I have no idea what time it is. But I think it is long after noon."

"Dad!" said Joe on the verge of a panic attack. _Oh my gosh, how much did I drink last night? Did I do anything stupid? _

"You two look like you have just come back from the wars. And I doubt I can even ask you what the other two other fellows look like," said Fenton using the code phrase that they had agreed on years ago – the code phrase that meant that the room was bugged by unknown people. The reference to two signified that there was both a hidden camera and a bug.

"I was in the computer lab. The one guy looked suspicious, but I took a dollar bill from the other one that must have been laced with a chemical before realizing it," said Frank in a rush as his memory came back to him. "My professor is never going to forgive me if I don't show up for my test." _How did I get here? Where are we… _he thought as he tried to remember more.

"Trust Frank to worry about a test after he's been kidnapped," said Joe who was trying valiantly to sit up.

"Kidnapped! It's you who is always… Oh," said Frank who was now sitting on the edge of the bed and looking around the room. "Are you working on any cases? I'm not working on anything so there is no reason for anyone to kidnap me right now."

"I just finished something a couple of days ago. But those people aren't organized enough to come after all three of us." Fenton glanced at Joe with narrowed eyes as he finished speaking. "You are reacting more severely to the drugs than I would have thought. Either they used something more powerful or… you were drinking at the time?"

"Um… ah…"

"I promise you, once we get out of here, your mother will hear about this."

As Joe opened his mouth to protest, Frank intervened.

"We can settle this later. Who would kidnap all three of us like this and why?" He very slowly began to walk around the room and stood toward the side of the door that he discovered in the wall.

"Hey there!" yelled Joe, happy for a distraction from his father. "We're awake now. You can stop hiding out there like a chicken."

Silence.

"This is the song that never ends! It goes on and on my friend! Some people started…"

Silence.

"Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall! Ninety nine bottles of beer! If one of those bottles…"

Silence.

After even Joe got tired of singing, Frank sat back down on the bed and the three men began to talk. Even though the summer wasn't too long ago, it was the first time they had seen each other since both Frank and Joe had left for college. Frank enjoyed hearing Joe talk about all the friends he was making at UCLA and quietly made comparisons between his and Joe's first semesters of college. Fenton reminded himself to enjoy the company, if not the moment. _Some families go on vacation together_, he thought. _We get kidnapped in order to spend some quality time with each other. (see note at bottom)  
_

"The great Fenton Hardy and his two detective-wannabe sons," said a voice from the doorway. "If you had told me 30 years ago that it would turn out like this, I never would have believed you."

As a hoard of men swarmed into the room, Frank focused his attention on the man who had spoken. He wasn't very tall – about 5'5'' but extremely thin. His black hair had hints of grey throughout his hair, but it was the eyes that Frank noticed the most. He had gone toe-to-toe with cold-blooded serial killers and criminals who were truly insane. But those emerald green eyes gleamed with a ferocious intelligence that only came from insanity with a covering of rationality.

"Thomas? But Laura said you were…"

"Dead? No, I'm very much alive I am afraid."

He approached Joe who tried to punch him but was restrained by two pairs of strong arms holding him back. "The younger Hardy," Thomas said brushing Joe's hair back. "You've inherited your father's headstrong nature." As Frank reached out to stop Thomas from touching his brother any more, he was restrained by someone whose martial arts skills were far more advanced than his. "And this is Frank. You've inherited your mother's intelligence and computer skills."

Turning away from Frank's puzzled look, Thomas addressed Fenton. "But of course he has no idea. He's never known the real Laura Hardy."

"Yes he has," said Fenton. "More than he knows. Your quarrel is with me. Let my sons go."

"But Dad…"

"Quiet, Joe."

"Your sons should have been mine."

"You were always very possessive. No man could be prouder of his sons."

"I would only be prouder if they were mine. Mine and Laura's…"

"After what you did to her, you still think she would have stayed with you regardless of if I entered the picture or not! You're more arrogant than I remember." Fenton had forgotten all of his professionalism as he stared unflinchingly at Thomas. It had been a long time since he had felt this angry.

"Laura Basden was mine until you came along. We had our lives planned out together. We just had to do that one last job and then we would have been home free, gotten married and have had two kids." He turned around and jammed his finger against Fenton's chest. "Your kids should have been mine and your wife was mine."

"She was never yours. Nor was she ever mine," said Fenton with a fire in his eyes. "Laura made her own choices. It's your fault that you lost her."

Joe never saw the hand moving. He only heard the crack as Thomas's hand connected with Fenton's nose and saw his father sag to only be held up by the two thugs on either side of him. Desperate to get to his father, Joe turned to grapple with the two goons who were holding him, but to no avail. Goon number one stunned him by slamming him up against the wall. Goon two then turned Joe around and forced him to watch the beating. Joe desperately wanted to look away, but he couldn't.

Frank was engaged in a martial arts fight, and he was losing. His karate black belt was no match for the two martial arts experts who blocked his best attempts like he was a little kid. He was pushed up against the opposite wall from Joe and made to stay there. His blood boiled as he saw his father get kicked repeatedly by Thomas out of the corner of his eye, and his own helplessness made it worse.

Fenton Hardy couldn't see. His right eye was blurry and his left eye was rapidly swelling. His entire left side hurt and his breath came out in short gasps. As he was less able to stand up straight and the two thugs beside him stopped holding him up, he thought he was able to get a few punches in before he was forced to put his arms up to shield his head. Each moment brought a fresh pain somewhere unexpected, and Fenton prayed for it to stop and that this crazy man would not start on either Frank or Joe.

"That felt good," said Thomas after what felt like hours but was only minutes. "You got what you deserved."

Thomas nodded to the men holding both Frank and Joe. One punched Frank in the head while another punched Joe in the gut. Leaving both boys gasping on the floor, the goons moved toward the door.

"It will go like this. Laura needs to do the last job that the two of you foiled for me. If she does it, Frank and Joe go home. Fenton however,… we'll have to have a little chat. If you will give Laura up, you'll live. If you won't, then you'll die."

The door slammed, leaving all three Hardys in various positions on the floor.

"Dad…" said Joe moving toward Fenton. "Did you break anything?"

Fenton slowly moved all of his body parts and gingerly touched his nose. He then shook his head, thankful he had not broken any ribs. He moved over to the bed and sat on it with his head between his knees. After he no longer felt like he was going to pass out, he lay down on the bed and closed his eyes.

Frank joined Joe and closely looked over Fenton. "Nothing is broken," he said softly. "But there's plenty of bruising and I don't know about internal injuries. We need some ice or something, now."

He turned his attention to Joe and was satisfied that Joe had only superficial cuts that would be fine.

"How about you?" asked Joe worriedly.

"No, they knew what they were doing. Their goal was to stop me from hurting them rather than to hurt me. It was Dad they really wanted to hurt."

"But why?" asked Joe turning back to Fenton. "This doesn't make…" Joe stopped frozen. Fenton didn't look like himself. His eyes were staring fixedly into the distance. It was as if he was somewhere else not here…

Despite the distance that separated them over the past two years, their relationship as brothers was as strong as ever, and they could still tell in a glance what each other was thinking. And they were both afraid. Very afraid.

All three of them had been kidnapped on numerous occasions, with Joe winning the "most kidnapped person of the year" award. While that did not mean that each kidnapping was not serious and frightening, despite Thomas's rage, this had certainly not been the worse situation the Hardys had ever been in. But although they were past the age where they viewed their father as invincible, their father was always levelheaded and strong, no matter what the circumstances were. This time, it looked like he had completely fallen apart.

It did not seem to be the physical violence, but rather the emotional trauma that caused Fenton to draw into himself. Both boys were baffled as to who Thomas was. And how did their mother fit into this? As Frank and Joe exchanged worried glances, they could only wait silently until Fenton decided to speak.

Note: This is a modified quote from Alias: Season Two The Passage Part II. The actual saying by Sydney Bristow is: "Some families play miniature golf. We go to India to look for nukes."


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: Ok, I own Thomas, Jeff, Don and Jim. I don't own Fenton or Laura. Thanks for the great reviews. This is a pretty long chapter, and I know they probably didn't have cell phones back then, but this is fan fiction. I promise that we'll see a little more action from the present day in the next chapter.

**Second Flashback – two weeks after the last flashback. **

Staring at the picture on the wall opposite him, Fenton tried to think about what else they could be doing to stop the Camarzzi syndicate. Surveillance videos of the exit and entrance were being reviewed daily. Security had been discreetly tightened, with several guards posing as museum tourists. Matt's contacts in the Philadelphia police department had made rounds of pawnshops and other places with pictures of the most valuable items in the museum that were scheduled to be auctioned off to see if anyone had brought anything that could remotely serve as a fake. Fenton's old friend in the NYPD who was now a successful FBI counterterrorism agent was checking with his colleagues who had tracked Camarazzi money laundering operations. The problem was that there were no confirmed pictures of anyone who had worked within the Camarazzi operation or any informants. People either joined for life, kept their mouths shut, or turned up dead.

Now, he was scheduled to meet the art student Joie for lunch in 15 minutes. They had met twice over the last two weeks. Joie was in the museum once or twice a week drawing various art objects that were on display. She was a very talented artist who could capture the perspective of anything perfectly.

In their conversations together, Fenton, (Frank!) he admonished himself, found himself talking about his years at NYPD and his childhood with his older sister Gertrude in New York City. In turn, Joie had told him about going to art school in California and growing up around the country. Fenton felt sad as he knew that the conversations had to end. Although he felt like he would really like to know her better, it wasn't possible because of his work. He had seen too many cops and PI's marriages fall apart to think that he would want to marry. A few years ago, he had decided that he would be married to his work. Each time they met, he vowed to himself that he would break off these conversations, (not a relationship!), but he could never bring himself to do it. However, he did have a vague, foreboding sense that it would be a disaster for him if he continued to see her, and promised himself that he would tell her that he was moving on to another city soon.

Laura (Joie!) got her tuna sandwich in the cafeteria and looked around for Frank/Fenton. Spotting him entering the cafeteria, she gestured to a nearby table and set her lunch down there. The smile that "Frank" flashed her as he was heading to the lunch line made her heart race. _No slipups Laura, _she told herself. _That is Fenton Hardy_._Frank does not exist, and the person you are about to eat lunch with may be very dangerous to you. _Yet, she could tell that Fenton genuinely enjoyed their conversations, just as much as she did, and she was confident enough in her abilities that she was sure he still had no idea who she was. While neither of them gave specifics, both of them had talked generally about their lives. _This will be the last time, _Laura told herself. _And you cannot say goodbye to him. _That troubled her most of all.

"How are you Joie?" asked Fenton setting his tray with a BLT down on the table next to Laura's. "How were your classes yesterday?"

"Good," she answered reaching back to her memories from her undergraduate days and taking a bite of her sandwich. "The professor gave a lecture on how it much easier to draw what we think is there rather than what is actually there. The challenge is allowing our eyes to see what is really there without the mind interfering. How was your day?"

"Not bad. It gets frustrating once in a while trying to look for birds in an urban setting though." Deciding that he had nothing to lose, Fenton took the plunge "I'll probably be moving on soon. There are more rare birds in the countryside around Philadelphia."

"Oh," said Laura, both relieved and disappointed, "I will probably be moving back out west pretty soon anyway."

"You want to move back to California?" asked Fenton with his eyebrow raised.

"I left home to go to college. I never looked back, and I always kept moving. So, I probably won't move to California. I may try New Mexico. I've never lived in a desert before." A brief silence followed as Fenton and Laura were lost in their thoughts. And then, as if by unspoken agreement, the conversation switched to more mundane and less personal things – movies, art, and politics. Their conversation blended in completely with the various conversations that were taking place around them. They parted with a friendly handshake and a generic "see you later", neither of them wanting to get into the specifics.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Leaving Fenton, Laura walked down the hall and entered the women's restroom which was empty. Going to the mirror, she took off her red wig and took out some tinted contact lenses. Putting in the contact lenses, she stared at the foreign green eyes and familiar blonde hair in the mirror. _Time to work, _she thought - feeling the thrill of anticipation that she always felt when she was going to do something illegal without being caught.

Exiting the restroom, she walked brazenly past Fenton Hardy who was talking intently with a museum security guard, headed toward the front entrance and pulled out an identification card.

"Hello," she said pleasantly to the woman at the desk. My name is Samantha Rowan and I have an appointment with the curatorial assistant.

"Ah yes," said the woman checking the schedule. "She will be here to meet you shortly."

The curatorial assistant was a petite woman with short black hair, glasses and a perfectly round face. "So, you are here from the insurance company Miss Rowan?' she inquired. "My name is Araiana and I would be happy to help you."

"I just need to verify the materials that will be auctioned off shortly are in good condition and that the paperwork is in order for the insurance purposes." This ruse wasn't as risky as it sounded. She herself had hacked into the computers of both the museum and the actual insurance company to make it look like Samantha Rowan did have an appointment here.

"Please come with me," Ariana said smiling as she turned to a door marked "Exit". "The items that will be auctioned off have been on display, but they were brought down here last night. We are getting ready to clean them and put them on display for the auction." Security was still tight downstairs, Laura noted, although not as bad as upstairs. Reaching the bottom of the stairs, she gestured toward a door. "They are right that way."

Laura walked in the room brightly lit room. Various art objects were randomly scattered around the place. She smiled and put a hand in the pocket of her blazer as if she were looking for a pen. In reality, she was activating a camera. Her hidden camera, with the lens hidden in her buttonhole, was automatically taking one picture every three seconds. She very slowly walked around the room, stopping to look at each and every piece.

"Nothing looks damaged, as I knew nothing would be. All I need is the paperwork for our files that they will be auctioned off and we'll be all set. Someone will be here the day of the auction to make note of everything that is sold."

Ariana turned around. "They are in an office at the other side of the building. Would you like to wait here?"

Sure," said Laura. _Perfect, _she thought. _Now I don't have to pretend I'm going to faint or do anything silly like that. _She moved quickly to a nearby office marked curator and made a beeline for the filing cabinet. Although it was locked, she found a key in the desk right next to the cabinet and started searching for the other information she needed. _Got it. The auction is scheduled for Thursday. It's Monday. This says that their expert is coming in tomorrow and everybody will be back on Wednesday. So, we'll have to move tomorrow night. _Laura started to stuff the papers back in the filing cabinet when she heard –

"Insurance investigator? I would like to meet her."

_S---, _Laura thought. _That's Fenton!_

"Yes," replied Ariana. "I left her here while I went to get the paperwork."

It sounded like they were right outside the door. Spinning around to face the door, Laura saw the knob begin to turn. She quietly put the papers back in the correct folder, closed and locked the filing cabinet and put the key back in the desk drawer. With no time to spare, she ducked down under the curator's desk, deactivated her hidden camera and tried not to breathe too loudly.

"That's odd," said Ariana. "Perhaps she is waiting upstairs."

Fenton Hardy entered the curator's office and looked around. He walked over to the filing cabinet, found the key in the drawer, and started looking through the papers. Laura could only see his feet and the lower half of his legs as they shifted as he read. Finally, she heard him close and lock the filing cabinet, but he kept the key.

"Let's see if we can find her upstairs," said Fenton as he closed the door behind him.

As soon as he was gone, Laura emerged from under the desk and practically ran to the door. Seeing the three people walking down the hall, she silently went the other way to the adjacent stairwell and did run up the stairs. Emerging on the first floor, she immediately pulled out her cell phone and dashed into the women's restroom. Putting the cell phone to her ear, she pretended to listen as five seconds later she heard Ariana say: "I'll see if I can find her."

"That's ok," replied a familiar voice. "Please just give her my number and tell her to call me. I need to meet with someone else."

After she was sure Fenton had gone, Laura sighed with relief and emerged from the restroom while putting her cell phone away.

"Samantha!" said Ariana. "We were looking for you. The freelance security guy they hired would like to meet you."

"I'm sorry," said Samantha. "I just remembered this very important phone call that I had to make, and I came up here to make sure my cell phone would work."

"That's ok," said Ariana. "Here is a card with a number on it where you can reach him. You can give him a call later." _Shoot, _thought Laura as she walked out of the museum. _I wonder how I'm going to get out of this one._

_---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- _

"Perfect," said Thomas three hours later. "We have what we need. And with the information that you found today, we'll move up the schedule and go in tomorrow night."

Laura smiled and mentally reviewed the plan. Although they could not be sure before sure what items would be auctioned, they had a pretty good idea. Throughout the past two weeks, she had been drawing very detailed sketches of as many seemingly random items as she could. Far more talented, unscrupulous artists were making nearly identical copies of those works from her drawings. With the photographs that she had taken today, they would be able to put the last touches on them and they would be working overnight to complete their job. Only the finished items would be switched for the real ones tomorrow night. That was what troubled Laura. Only a few of the items could really be replaced in time. Money laundering was better – you got to take all of the money.

"Oh, Thomas," she said nervously. "There is one other thing."

"What's up?"

"Well… Fenton Hardy was there today and wanted to meet the insurance investigator. I recognized him from the photograph. He didn't see me, but I have a card and Samantha Rowan is supposed to give him a call. I've already dropped off the papers at the insurance company so they will think that someone did go and get them, but I kept the card. I can't call him, so can you take care of it?"

"Why can't you call him?" asked Thomas, recognizing the general musuem number.

"Well, you can't tell your father. But, I had a run in with Fenton at the museum a few days ago." Disregarding Thomas's open mouth she went on defensively "I didn't tell him anything. I don't think he could recognize me by sight but he will definitely know my voice."

"You _what?_ My father needs to know right now."

"Don't!" she said. "Just ask a woman to call him as Samantha Rowan and let's keep this quiet. Eric will either kill me or yank me off the job. And that will ruin all the plans we have together." Hating herself for this manipulation, she closed her eyes and leaned closer to him and gave him a kiss. A pair of brown eyes flashed before her, and she opened her eyes in shock.

"Fine," said Thomas. "This is the last job after all. I'll ask Evelyn to do it without telling her why."

"Thanks a million," said Laura gratefully.

"Don't mention it." But Thomas did wonder. Although Laura wasn't aware of it, her voice changed when she talked about Fenton Hardy. It became quieter but yet more animated. Why on earth?...

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"Checking," whispered Laura.

"Affirmative," answered Don. "We'll be at a computer soon." That morning, Laura had hacked into the museum's computer and made it look like a shipment of Egyptian mummies was coming into the museum. In reality, Don, Jim and Jeff were hidden in the shipping crate that had been delivered to the museum earlier along with the art objects. Pretty soon, they would disable the alarms in the museum and go to the room where the art had been placed after the expert had examined them earlier. _The buyers will sure get a surprise on Thursday, _thought Laura gleefully

"Jim is at the computer now, and Jeff is taking care of the cameras," said Don a few minutes later.

"Ok," said a second voice. "Laura, you should be able to see us now." Laura turned to her computer screens next to her. "I do," she said. You are ok. The guard is on the other side of the building and the night watchman who is supposed to be watching the cameras is having a very bad case of diarrhea thanks to that awful stuff Thomas put in his drink earlier."

"That was his fault," murmured Thomas. "He shouldn't have been drinking all that Mountain Dew."

"Thanks to Laura's instructions I've disabled the alarms where we need to go," said Jim.

"We're on schedule," said Thomas from behind Laura. "Make the switch and then exit through the fire escape."

Thomas moved to the drivers seat of the van and Laura watched through the video cameras. Suddenly, she sat up straighter and whispered "Don, where are you?" Because Jeff had frozen the cameras as a precaution on that entire side of the building, she couldn't see them through the cameras.

"We've made the switch. We're taking the originals and headed to the fire escape."

"Abort!" said Laura urgently. "There are about five security guards on that side of the building. They don't know the alarms are disabled yet. Turn around and head toward the back entrance."

"We didn't disable the alarms right there," said Jim tensely.

Thomas was already driving the van toward the back of the museum.

Laura heard the alarms begin to wail as Don said "damn it, move." All three men ran directly for the back entrance as Laura moved to open the side door of the van. The alarms continued as they tumbled into the van through the open door and Laura slammed it shut.

Thomas made a three-point turn in the tight alley to get to the main road. Laura moved into the passenger seat beside him. The glare of his headlights caught a man standing in front of the van with a gun pointed at them.

Thomas grinned and pressed his foot harder against the accelerator. Beside him Laura screamed "Fenton!", realizing that there was no way he could hear her.

Fenton Hardy hesitated as he was temporarily blinded by the headlights, and that was long enough. Rather than shooting, he rolled to one side in a roll that immediately brought him back to his feet facing the van. Yanking an expensive camera out of his pocket, he was able to get a snapshot of the back of the van before it disappeared around the corner. He grinned. The thieves had finally made a mistake. They had forgotten to cover up the rear license plate. Even if the art was gone, and he had no doubt it was, they finally had a very slim lead.


	6. Chapter 6

Disclaimer: I don't own anyone you recognize. This is a shorter chapter for some variety.

Vanessa Bender and Callie Shaw approached the bank on Monday morning.

"Laura called him," said Vanessa trying to convince herself that this would go well. "All we have to do is stick with the plan."

"I'm not totally comfortable with it either, Vanessa. But this is better than actually stealing this thing ourselves," said Callie. "And I'm sure we'll be fine." She herself was absolutely terrified and only slept for a few hours last night. She had slept in Frank's while Vanessa had taken Joe's.

Vanessa held the door open for Callie and then followed her into the bank. It was… a bank. There were the teller booths, the ropes that signified the waiting line and the small counters where people prepared their items for deposit. Usually she would have headed right there. But today, she had a meeting with the manager.

"I have an appointment with Mr. Smith," said Callie calmly to the nearest person she could.

"Right that way ma'am" said the college intern gesturing to the back. Callie smiled to herself at being called "ma'am" even though she wasn't rich and started toward the office with Vanessa following her.

"Miss Shaw," said Mr. Smith looking concerned. "What can I do for you?"

"We are here on behalf of Fenton, Frank and Joe Hardy." She and Vanessa had agreed that she would do most of the talking. She had a knack for "reading" people that would help get their point across sooner. "The three of them are out of town. They are now undercover and infiltrating a criminal gang out of Boston." She was also a better liar.

"Last night they called us. Apparently an element of the group they are infiltrating is planning a robbery – and their target is this bank," said Vanessa taking over the story. _I'm a much better liar than I thought! _

"But why would they rob our bank and not a bank in Boston?" Mr. Smith asked.

"They want the contents of a particular safe deposit box. Box 341. For a long time the Hardy's suspected that the Amaldo crime family has done business in the bank and they may have that safe deposit box. It's probably two different families fighting against each other," said Callie. _At least that much is true. _"Fenton has offered to take the safe deposit box and store it in his house safe. The Hardy house has a secure alarm system."

"Why on earth would the Hardy's house be better-protected than the Bayport Savings Bank?" inquired Mr. Smith aggressively. "I've never liked Hardy. Sure he's done some good for this town and helped a lot of people, but all three of them have also been quite arrogant at times."

"It's just a precaution," said Callie soothingly, shooting Vanessa a look telling her to behave as Vanessa glowered. "I know the bank is very well protected. But this way, even if they do break in to the bank or come anywhere near it, there is no risk of the contents being stolen at all." Seeing his indecision she added "I know your customers would appreciate that you always do your best to protect their interests".

"I would need to see written documentation from Fenton as well as a court order," said Mr. Smith. "It's still a free country that upholds the individual's right to private property."

"Ah yes," said Vanessa taking the papers out of her bag. "Here you go." Mr. Smith examined the two papers. One was theoretically a fax from Fenton addressed to the manager of the Bayport Savings Bank. The other was supposedly a court order from a Bayport judge that gave Callie and Vanessa permission to take the safe deposit box. In reality, Laura had skillfully finished forging both of them at three A.M. last night. _These should work_, she had said two hours earlier. _I copied them from copies of court orders that were in Fenton's desk. The paper and seals are identical to the original document._

"Well, everything looks like it is in order, but I still won't let you take it," said Mr. Smith.

"What do you mean?" asked Callie.

"This document doesn't strictly order me to give the box to you. It only gives me the option since this isn't strictly a matter of national security. My first duty is to my customers – and since there is no proof of the alleged robbery, only suspicions, I have complete discretion over whether to give it to you. The supposed identity of the box's owner is irrelevant. I couldn't just open boxes for anyone now could I?" he finished with a sarcastic smile. "If Fenton or his sons were here themselves, that might be another story, but they are not. Now if you'll excuse me, I have another appointment to keep."

When Vanessa opened her mouth to argue, Callie kicked her under the table. "Thank you Mr. Smith," she said. "I'll let Fenton, Frank and Joe know immediately that you refused to cooperate with us. But, if you want to risk your bank being robbed, then there is nothing I can do."

"We have excellent security here Miss Shaw," said Mr. Smith condescendingly." Have a good day."

"Pompous bureaucrat," said Vanessa as she left the bank. "Why didn't you push him?"

"He had his mind made up. And he likes to see himself as always going against what other people want. If you had pushed him, he would have been more stubborn, even to the point of actually calling the judge, and then we would have had more explaining to do."

"So now what?" asked Vanessa after they were in the car. She sounded discouraged.

"I'm sure Laura has another plan, and I'm sure she can find a way past that security, especially if she's anything like Frank or as stubborn as Joe. If she was really a criminal before, she'll think of something," answered Callie.

"Let's go home and ask her. While we're at it, I really want to know how in the world a criminal ended up married to Fenton Hardy. There is absolutely no way that he could have just forgiven all her crimes and married her on the spot – unless he doesn't know."

"No. He definitely knows. We do need to ask her, but not as soon as we walk in the door. We have enough going on right now."

"How do you think Fenton, Frank and Joe are?" asked Vanessa after a few moments of silence.

"Well, I'm sure they are together, and I'm sure they are going crazy looking for an escape. Frank and Joe should be fine. Even if Thomas or whatever his crazy name is wants to kill them, he won't until they do it until after we give them what they want. You know, I'm still not comfortable with not calling the police, but I don't see any way around it. You and I would be lost without Laura. We still need to figure out where they could be."

"And Fenton?" asked Vanessa who had been temporarily relieved when she heard about Joe that she didn't notice that Callie hadn't mentioned him.

"I don't know. Thomas obviously thinks he stole Laura away from him and hates his guts. Don't mention this to Laura. She's feeling guilty enough already."

"We're going to get them back," said Vanessa determinedly. "After all the times they have rescued us after we were kidnapped because of whatever cases they are working on, we can finally do the same for them."


	7. Chapter 7

Disclaimer: I dreamed that someone offered me the exclusive rights to the characters. But then I woke up and found that I don't own them. I do like and own Jim though...

Laura finished drying the dishes and walked to the telephone. _Face it_, she thought_. You're just procrastinating, get it over with! _Despite her efforts to forget these numbers, she had always remembered them. She mentally steeled herself and punched in the first number. She let it ring twice and then hung up. Exactly two minutes later she called a separate number and let it ring three times before hanging up. One minute later the phone rang.

"Jim, it's me," said Laura.

"You! You! Why aren't you somewhere far away? Like Tibet?"

"I know you are mad, and I'm not excusing myself. But listen to me. I can offer you the chance to get back at him."

"You think I'm going to work with you? I should call the cops right now and tell them who robbed that Las Vegas casino. You could give Steven Soderbergh some tips on how to make a movie."

"If you do that, I'll tell them who pulled off that armored car robbery and got two guards killed in the process. They won't care about the fact that your partner was a moron and you didn't fire either shot. Where is he now?"

"You call me offering me a chance to get back at that scumbag and you don't know where he is? What's really going on?"

"I - He came after me. Not just me. Me, I could have dealt with. But he went after my husband and my two sons."

"Your husband?"

"I…I'm different now." This was harder to admit than she thought. "I ended up marrying Fenton, Jim." Laura could _feel _Jim struggling with anger and surprise at the other end of the phone.

"Your sons are Frank and Joe?" he asked, sounding shocked. Laura wasn't surprised that Jim had heard of them.

"Yes. Frank is 20 and a sophomore at MIT studying computer science. Joe is 19 and at UCLA. They are terrific sons and great men. As brothers, they are almost inseparable and going to college is the first time they've been so far apart during their entire lives. Obviously, they don't know about me. How's your daughter"

"Beth refuses to talk to her father anymore. Someone told her the truth about what a dirtbag he is. She told me that if I ever contacted her again, she would go to the cops. If I had known what I was sacrificing, I would have stopped even before she was born."

"I'm sorry," said Laura sincerely. "You don't deserve that."

"I'm pretty sure Thomas is the one who told her."

"I was serious about what I said earlier. I will be going after him. I can't promise that I will not call the police, but I can promise that your name will not ever come up."

"I believe you." He sighed and then continued: "The entire operation has been rebuilt on a very small scale but it has pretty much dropped out of sight so it is difficult to track. Last I heard, Thomas was using a modified warehouse in New York City." He rattled off an address.

"Thank you, Jim. Like I said, I promise your name won't come into it."

"Good luck, Laura. You'll need it" The click echoed in her ear, and she put down the phone.

_Glad that's over with, _Laura thought. _Now, we can start tracking him down. _The doorbell rang. Smiling, she opened the door expecting that Callie and Vanessa were returning…

"Hi Sam! How are you?

"Hi Laura. Have you heard from Fenton?"

"No," she said maintaining the smile on her face. "He went to a conference and will be back next week. He has been really looking forward to it." This was Laura Hardy. She never inquired as to what her husband was doing unless either he or her sons had been kidnapped. If someone even suggested robbing a casino, she would smile kindly and suggest that they see a psychiatrist.

"I talked to him just before he left. He said he would check in, but I haven't heard from him."

"He probably just got wrapped up in what he was doing and will call in a couple days," said Laura. She and Sam shared a knowing smile and Laura continued "I just finished baking some cookies. Would you like some?"

"I have to get back to work soon, but sure. Have you heard from Frank and Joe?"

"Yep," said Laura setting the cookies down on the table. "Joe hasn't changed a bit personality wise and loves being in California. Frank is still overwhelmed, but his second year has been better than the first."

"That's great. Frank really is looking forward to a top-secret, top-notch government job after he graduates. I'm surprised they agreed to go to school at opposite ends of the country."

"That was really Joe," said Laura softly. "I think he's feeling a little overshadowed by Frank and Fenton, even though he won't admit it. He said that he wanted to go somewhere where nobody had even heard of the Hardys. But, I think it will work out for the best. He and Vanessa have agreed to maintain a long distance relationship, and Fenton mentioned that he managed to run into a few cases there."

Shaking his head at how mysteries seemed to crop up wherever the Hardys were, Sam finished his cookies and stood up. "I have to go to work. Let me know if you hear from Fenton. I can't wait to find out about that conference."

Watching Sam get into his car from the porch, Laura mentally kicked herself for lying to him. She hated doing it and really wanted to tell him. Any other time she would have. But Sam had just as much integrity as Fenton, if not more, and he would have arrested her on the spot, leaving her powerless to help her family. Unfortunately, she would have to tell him soon, not to mention that Frank and Joe would find out soon if they hadn't already. And thinking back on her conversation with Jim, she hoped that Frank and Joe would not reject her the way Beth had rejected him. Looking at the other end of the street, she saw Vanessa's car drive up.

"Wasn't that Sam?" asked Callie as soon as she got out of the car.

"Yes. I lied to him and told him that Fenton was at a conference and pretended that everything was just fine. I really hated doing that."

Seeing how depressed Laura was looking as they went into Fenton's study, Vanessa and Callie decided not to ask Laura questions right then. "Our news isn't good," said Callie. "Stupid jerk called Fenton arrogant and refused to give us the box because it wasn't strictly a case of national security even though he did think the letters were real. I was afraid that he would call the judge if we pressed him." Laura nodded and turned to Vanessa.

"Did you leave them?" she asked hopefully.

"Yes, I did!" said Vanessa with a smile.

" Leave what?" asked Callie looking from Vanessa who now had a Cheshire cat grin on her face.

"We couldn't tell you because you had to be oblivious. But while you were talking to him, I left some bugs in his office. I'm sorry, but I wanted him to pay the most attention to you. If I had gotten caught, you would have known nothing about it and may have eventually had a chance to go. They are now underneath Mr. Smith's desk."

"Apology accepted, but don't do that again – either of you," said Callie.

"One of them is a bug that Fenton had," said Laura. "The other is a gadget that will let us into his computer. I just made a phone call to start tracking Thomas down. I have a possible address in New York City for us to check out. I'm afraid we will really need to rob the bank. I really can handle this myself. You two don't need-" She stopped at the looks on their faces and started outlining a potential plan.


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer: Don't own Fenton or Laura **

**Flashback: A series of events two-three weeks after the robbery**

"Where are they?" asked Fenton quietly.

"I told you, I don't know," said the man in front of him.

"We have you for auto theft. Since the car you stole was used in a robbery, we can charge you as an accessory. You're going to jail. If you help us, I'll tell the D.A. you cooperated and you might get a reduced sentence."

"Cooperated!" he snorted. "That won't do me any good. You hear what happened to the last guy who ratted them out? I might as well shoot myself."

"Not if we send you to a prison on the other side of the country. Think about it."

Fenton walked out of the interrogation room and watched Peter Thorton through the one-way glass. _I'll give him a little while to think it over_, he thought. _And then maybe we'll get answers. _

People had told him often that he was the luckiest detective they knew. But, he never really believed them. For him it was always a matter of connecting the dots and finding the patterns. But, when he saw the photograph that he took that night, he did thank his lucky stars. The license plate was remarkably clear. It belonged to a van that had been reported stolen two weeks before. Normally, that would have been the end of it, except that the van had been dumped in a parking lot last week – a mall parking lot. The owner of the mall was a paranoid person who had installed a security camera in the parking lot.

Reviewing security footage had taken hours, and Fenton had to practically twist arms to get permission for Officer Young and Matt to help him. But, it had been worth it. Officer Young found a nice clear picture of the person who had dropped off the van. Peter Thorton was a low-life criminal who was already known to the Philadelphia police department because he had a record for forging checks. Ties to organized crime had been suspected, but never proved. Deciding that Peter had stewed for long enough, Fenton walked back into the interrogation room.

"No, no, no," said Peter immediately. "I may be a thief, but I'm not a rat."

"They wouldn't be so considerate of you if I had them here. You'd be hung out to dry." Sitting down Fenton continued. "With your previous record, a judge will give you the maximum sentence. The police department is extremely embarrassed by this high-profile robbery. They are going to hang the entire thing around your neck unless you give me something!"

Seeing Peter grow even more stubborn, Fenton changed tactics. "It's your decision. This is a chance for you to do something different with your life. Cooperate with me and I'll tell the D.A. that you should do time for the car theft but nothing for the robbery. You'll be out of jail relatively soon and you can then get on with your life. The choice is yours, Peter."

"I want that deal in writing and a cigarette," Peter said firmly. "Then I'll tell you what I know…

"Here it is. The D.A. agreed." said Fenton a couple hours later. "It is contingent on what you tell us. You'll plead guilty to automobile theft. If your information isn't good enough, if you omit anything, or if you lie to me the slightest bit, the deal is off."

"Ok. I was hired to steal the van and make arrangements for some of the equipment they used. I was given access to a bank account and funds came directly from there. I made a delivery to a warehouse, and only talked over a phone. They called me, I never called them so I don't even have a number. I never met anyone directly."

"Bank account number, suppliers and list of equipment," said Fenton sliding a sheet of paper across the table with a pen. "But I'm afraid without any more information, that's not enough to justify your agreement. I'll have to go back to the D.A." He started to get up from the table.

"Wait! There's something else. It's just a rumor but…"

"Cough it up," said Fenton firmly and fixed Peter with a steely gaze. Far into the future, that gaze would cause a stubborn 12 year old Joe to admit where he had hidden all of the Halloween candy that was supposed to go to trick-or-treaters.

"Word on the street is that Camarazzi and Amaldo met each other at a party and got into a fight. The entire account is pretty sketchy but basically Amaldo told Camarazzi that he would be the best and Camarazzi would be nothing. Amaldo has usually controlled the high-end art thefts – and Camarazzi is trying to take business away from him."

"So, this entire thing is a vendetta between two mob bosses?"

"Uh-huh. Amaldo insulted Camarazzi's dear, departed wife. They haven't spoken to each other since."

"What else?"

"Huh?"

"No, you know something else. What?"

"Amaldo's wife owns this fancy jewelry – diamonds, sapphires, emeralds, the works. Worth at least a million dollars. Lady never wears it. Keeps it in a bank 'cept on special occasions. Camarazzi's going to go after it."

"Which bank? Tell me, and you'll have earned your deal several times over."

"Savings Bank – Bayport, NY"

* * *

Laura wished she could forget. She also wished that what was coming would never come. For the first time in her life, she started wondering what she had gotten into. 

Her life of crime started when she was an art student. Her best friend Beth and come to her after she had gotten a D in Anthropology 101. She really should have gotten a B. Her slimy professor had dropped her two full letter grades after she had rebuffed his advances.

Laura felt a thrill as she hacked into the university system and changed everybody's grades. Beth had gotten a B. The cutest guy in the class had gotten an A. The snob nobody liked got a C. Although Laura had been questioned along with Beth's other friends, withstanding the interrogation had been easy. The public safety cops never had any proof and everybody kept the grades Laura had given them. She loved the thrill and the power at first. But it was also about greed. This longing for material goods, to have things that nobody else knew she had. Nobody had ever gotten hurt and she always only stole from people who had more money than they knew what to do with. When Thomas had approached her offering an easy way to get rich fast, she had never looked back. Until the latest robbery

"Problems?" inquired Eric as everyone emerged from the van that night and he noticed the undercurrent of tension and energy.

"Hardy," growled Thomas.

"Hey, cool it," said Don sensing that this was about to turn ugly. "We got everything and we got away. No worries."

Thomas ignored him and continued: "I suggest you ask Laura how they knew we were coming".

"What?" Laura could not believe Thomas was doing this to her. "They didn't know."

"You met with Fenton Hardy. You must have told him." The worse of it was that Thomas knew exactly what betrayal he committed and how easily it could have gotten her killed.

"I was drawing," said Laura through clenched teeth. "Fenton came by and complimented me on my work. He may be a cop, but he has good manners. I thanked him. We talked about color hues. He asked me if I had seen any suspicious people hanging around, and I told him no. That's all."

"But you made me find someone else to call him."

"I was afraid he would recognize my voice from that encounter, that's all. While I was in the curator's office under the desk, Fenton came in and read the same papers I did. He probably realized that just anyone could have read them!"

"And the way you yelled his name earlier?" Thomas's expression was impossible to read.

"I was just surprised. There's no way he could have heard me. Look, if he had really known we were there, we never would have gotten out."

"Quiet! I've heard enough," Eric broke in.

"Laura, we're assuming you've been made. I can't believe either of you didn't tell me immediately. Normally, I would have you out now with orders to keep your mouth shut. But, you'll be needed for the next job."

Laura's sigh of relief was interrupted as the rest of Eric's words registered. But Jim spoke first.

"Next job?" he inquired with a raised eyebrow. "This was the last one. I'm out." He started to leave, but the goon by the door displayed the pistol at his hip and Eric spoke behind him.

"You're out when I say you're out. Not before. We're going after the Amaldo family safe deposit box next."

"With all due respect, _sir_, that's enough. Eventually somebody'll get hurt because of your personal vendetta. It won't be me. I'm leaving." Laura could not believe Jim had the nerve to say half as much.

"You have a daughter I believe?" said Eric "You stay with me or she will have a little accident." His gaze shifted to the rest of them. "That goes for all of you." He turned and left without another word. Jim and Laura exchanged angry glances. Her sympathy for him was as plain as the absolute fury on his face. _Jim will never forgive him. Not now, not ever. Eric's made himself an enemy._

* * *

"That was outrageous!" Laura vented to Thomas hours later. "I don't believe it. And threatening his kid!" 

"He was going to leave. Dad did what he had to do."

"He crossed the line. Now Jim will always hate him, and I couldn't blame him the least. And you, why did you sell me out – that could have been it!"

"It was your fault. Ever since you met Fenton Hardy you haven't been the same. Your voice, your gestures, they've changed."

"I haven't changed. I love you. I just agree with Jim. Eric's gone too far. We have plans – the two of us getting married and having a life together. When is that going to happen?"

"Soon. Very soon, Laura." Thomas reached out to touch her arm but Laura pulled back.

"I don't want soon. I want now. What's gotten into you? Two months ago you would have agreed with me."

Thomas sighed. "Since I was a kid, I always wanted to make my father proud of me. But, I'll never be as good as you. You make it look easy. If I stay, if we stay, I can make him proud of me."

"Is that why you won't leave? If it comes down to a choice between me and him, which one will you choose?"

Thomas didn't answer and Laura slammed the door on her way out.

* * *

The next morning Eric had called Laura into his study. "Come in," he said with a smile that was the most genuine Laura had seen from him yet. I had promised you a promotion if everything went well. Despite your potential error, it was a success. So, as of this moment you are my right hand operative. Congratulations!" 

Laura was silent and Eric said "I know this means a lot to you. I was expecting more of a reaction."

"What about Thomas," she finally said. "Does he know."

"You and I know he'll never be as good as you. Now you'll get 10 of every transaction within the organization." Eric expected to see greed or pleasure on her face, but he didn't see anything so he continued. "Like I said last night, we're going after a safe deposit box in a bank. Mrs. Amaldo's jewelry is there and is estimated at over a million dollars. I just can't wait to hear about his reaction when he finds out his wife's jewelry is gone."

"Which bank?" Laura asked.

"Bayport Savings Bank. Bayport, NY."

* * *

"You're right," said Eric to Thomas two hours later. "She's different. Keep an eye on her for me, would you?"

* * *

Laura had never regretted her life of crime, and she still didn't. What she had told Fenton was true – she had never looked back. She just needed to find a way forward out of this mess.

* * *

_Bayport, _thought Fenton. _Never heard of it…_ His thoughts were interrupted by Matt who yelled across the room "Phone for you, Fenton!" 

"Hey Fenton, it's Doug," said the voice on the other end of the line. Doug was the FBI counterterrorism agent who had gotten his start as a New York City cop. "You asked me to check on the Camarazzi money laundering operations. Well, someone wants to meet you. Just go to the FBI office in Philadelphia and he'll be waiting for you there."

"Thanks man, I won't forget it." Five minutes later, Fenton was on his way. The nameless suit that was waiting for him at the FBI office had a file an inch thick.

"So you're interested in Camarazzi," he said by way of greeting. "I've been watching them for almost three years. This art thing is relatively new; they've traditionally been into money laundering. They started out pretty small and then worked their way up to finally get onto our radar screen."

"How do they usually operate?" asked Fenton.

"Off-shore bank accounts, shell corporations and intermediaries – your standard financial crime layout. They blackmail people for money. There's an entire branch involved in drugs as well. We've been pretty successful at tracking those down, but there are still more. They have pulled off some bank robberies too, both electronically by hacking into bank accounts and with guns."

"How do they get away with it?"

"Ruthless secrecy and absolute loyalty. People either join for life or keep their mouths shut if they don't want it shut permanently by Eric Camarazzi. The people they blackmail never talk. We nearly caught them last time. We had a trap all ready to go. But, one of their best people realized it was a trap at the last minute. We've also had a lot of trouble figuring out who works with them. The small-time criminals like Peter Thorton don't usually know enough and for the most part, the heavy-weights just blend in with everyone else."

"Tough luck. He must be top-notch if he avoided your trap."

"She. We finally got a picture of her a couple months ago. Sorry for not getting it to you earlier." He took a photograph from the folder and handed it to Fenton. "Her name is Laura Basden."

"Peter knows their next target. It's a safe-deposit box in Bayport, NY at Bayport Savings Bank," said Fenton holding the photographs in his hand.

"That's just outside of New York City," said the suit. "I'll let the FBI office in New York know you'll be looking into it. Contact them when you need help."

"I'm surprised they aren't taking over my investigation," Fenton commented.

"For the moment. You brought this to our attention, and you're smart enough not to do anything stupid so we'll give you that courtesy. We also made a mistake of not circulating that picture. But, keep us informed." The FBI agent left.

"Will do," said Fenton to his back and looked down at the photo in his hand. _Those eyes! _his brain screeched. _I'd know them anywhere!_

* * *

_Why?Why?Why?_ he asked himself later. Her words came back to him - "_how it is much easier to draw what we think is there rather than what is actually there. The challenge is allowing our eyes to see what is really there without the mind interfering. _" 

His mind refused to believe that he had had lunch three times and had been oblivious as to who he was eating with. His eyes told him that the blue eyes staring at him in the picture were those of the woman he had met about a month ago named Joie. A woman who had made him laugh, who had taken his mind off his job, and who was interesting and great to talk to. Apparently her name wasn't Joie at all – it was Laura.

Throughout this career as a law-enforcement officer, he had never had any sympathy whatsoever for criminals. Regardless of how hard their upbringing was; what neighborhood they grew up in or what family they came from, everyone made their own decisions. He had seen men from some of the toughest neighborhoods become dedicated cops and some other men who had the misfortune to be born into criminal families break away from them. Those experiences left him with the conviction that everyone chose their own fate and were accountable for their actions – nothing less, nothing more. But, this woman had a hold on him. He couldn't help but think that her life could have turned out differently, should have turned out differently.

Rule number two was not to mix the business and the personal. He had sworn to himself that his job would always come first. He meant it to stay that way. And now, his job was to bring her organization down.


	9. Chapter 9

Amblewat: What would be the fun in that? ;) I've gotten great advice from reviewers - one being to avoid the dashes between scenes. I don't plan to use those anymore.

The mug had been Joe's favorite as a child. Laura had just recounted the story of eight year old Joe's fascination with The Tale of Peter Rabbit. Joe had finally read the book and demanded that they have a vegetable garden of their own so that bunnies would come and play in it. After he gave a solemn vow that he would not chase the bunnies, he and Laura grew all the vegetables that the Hardy's had eaten that summer. For his September birthday that year, he had received a complete Peter Rabbit mug, plate and bowl set. Vanessa now placed the empty mug down in the sink and tried to blink back the tears in her eyes.

"How do you do it?!" she burst out. "I can't stand not knowing. This has happened before, but Frank or Joe or Fenton was always looking for one of them. Now, it's different."

"Would you love them in the same way if they were not who they are?" Laura asked quietly. "My husband and my sons became detectives because they are good men who want to help people, and this is the best way they can do it. If they felt that they could be helping people on a 9-5 job, they would, and that would be fine, too. But this is who they are, and this is who we are." Before Vanessa could ask what she meant, Callie broke in.

"Other times we had faith that they would be found before it's too late because Frank, Joe or Fenton was always out looking for them, not to mention the entire Bayport Police Department. Now…"

"Now, we have faith in ourselves," interrupted Laura sharply. "You are both strong, smart, women who will find them and bring them home. You wouldn't have stayed with them if you weren't."

Startled at her outburst, and not sure what she meant, Vanessa and Callie exchanged confused looks. Laura saw their expressions and tried to explain as she put down Fenton's mug with "World's Best Dad" written on the side. Frank had given it to him for Father's Day years ago.

"The first illegal thing I ever did was when I changed a friend's grades in college. My motives were good; her professor deliberately flunked her because she wouldn't go out with him. But I really did like it, and I moved on to more serious crimes and mixed with some awful people. The best parts were the fun of planning a job. The certainty that I would never get caught, and the absolute relief when it was over, and I could look forward to the next one. I was young and dumb." She smiled wistfully at the memory.

"I also wanted things, thinking that wealth was the key to happiness. When I fell in love with Fenton, I didn't feel that way anymore. I had his love, and that was enough, more than enough. He saw that despite all I had done, I was still a good person inside and helped me to see that I was a good person, too. That I deserved a better life than the one I had made for myself.

I told you before that the crimes I committed were never solved. What I didn't tell you was that I returned everything that I stole, and most of what the Syndicate stole before we married. That was my choice, and I've never stolen anything since."

"We've been wondering about that," said Callie. "How come you never us about this before?"

"Guilt and fear of rejection," said Laura stoically, firmly refusing to think about that real possibility. "But another reason is that part of me has been afraid of reverting back into my old self if I thought about it too much. That's why I've deliberately kept myself out of the detective life in general. After Frank and Joe were born, I was happy being a mother and left Laura Basden behind for good. But, I remember the pride of a job well done, the satisfaction of helping my friend get back at her professor. I see those emotions in Fenton, Frank and Joe. I wouldn't take the opportunity of feeling that pride and sense of accomplishment away from them, even with all the risks. I also know how ruthless criminals can be, and that they need to be brought down. Otherwise, they'd hurt people and destroy lives. Frank and Joe were born to do that."

"But we're not like them," argued Vanessa. "We don't take those kinds of risks."

"Really?" Laura turned to Callie.

"Remember that case when Gina or whatever her name was came after you? Frank and Joe totally discounted you, and you proved them wrong?"

Seeing Callie smile grimly she turned back to Vanessa.

"Just how many times have you been with Joe and done some fast talking to keep him from getting killed?" Vanessa looked thoughtful and remembered the time when she had convinced a pair of thugs that she and Joe were innocent strollers on the beach instead of looking for a smuggler's hideout.

"Not to mention all the times that you have waited for them to come home, hoping that this would not be the one time in a thousand they did not? That's even harder than going out and looking for them," she said thinking back to the nights when someone was missing and she had not slept at all.

"Less committed women would never have stayed with them. They would have tried to convince them to stop being who they are and left them when they didn't." Seeing their unconvinced looks, Laura pressed on.

"Do you think Fenton and I would let just anyone into this life? Do you think Frank and Joe would have stayed with you, regardless of how much they loved you, if they didn't also trust you - especially after Iola died? They may not realize it, but Frank and Joe have faith in you, as do Fenton and I. You only need to have faith in yourselves."

Two hours later Vanessa walked past a warehouse in New York City. The light sweater that she carried over her arm masked the camera that she was angling toward the guy who had just left it on the opposite sidewalk. He resembled the photograph that she had seen earlier in Fenton's files of known underworld operatives. She quickly got into her car as Callie came around the corner and gestured to Callie to follow him. From talking to men making a delivery to a nearby restaurant, Vanessa had already learned that the warehouse was empty, meaning that the Hardys were somewhere else.

If Vanessa had not known that was Callie, she would have walked right past her on any street in Bayport. Callie's shoulder length blonde hair was covered by a dark wig. She had applied makeup that significantly darkened her skin tone and the first thing that anyone noticed about her face was the awful green eye shadow that made it impossible to notice anything else. Following the man in front of her, she slouched along the street, acting like she didn't have a care in the world. Vanessa started the car and followed both of them, remembering Joe's advice on how to tail a suspect in a vehicle. _Most people don't notice what's going on until you move into their space. Stay a good block back and allow other cars to get in front of you. If someone is getting suspicious and you're on a straight road, don't be afraid to get in front of them. _

For the last fifteen minutes, their tail had been completely oblivious. Now, he suddenly turned into an alley. Vanessa gasped as Callie followed him. Speeding up, she passed the alley and saw that it opened onto a busy street on the other side. Driving the car around the block, she sighed in relief as Callie emerged from the alley seconds later and got into the car and immediately pulled away from the curb.

"It's a set of old offices," she said. "I pretended I lived in one of the upstairs apartments and followed him inside. He went down into the basement, but I heard someone inside say the names Thomas and Hardy. They're definitely there."

"I can't believe you did that! Don't you know how many women get mugged in alleys?" asked Vanessa exasperatedly.

"Hey, have faith in me!" said Callie dramatically. "I had to take a little risk, and I made sure it wasn't a dead end before I walked into it. You wouldn't have hesitated."

"I'm also trained in Aikido," said Vanessa. "Seriously, there isn't another woman I would rather have with me."

"Agreed! Now, let's see if we can get some blueprints for this building."

Back in Bayport, Laura looked at the set of blueprints and notes lying on the dining room table. Luckily, Fenton had been involved in re-evaluating the security of Bayport Savings Bank three years ago, and had told her after the assignment was over. She chuckled as she imagined what he must have been thinking as he had gone about his work, knowing that his wife had planned to rob the same bank years earlier. _There is a possible way in and out_, she thought. But police enforcement and banking security standards had certainly increased since she last was in this business. If half of what she had heard about the Amaldo jewelry was correct, a fake would be spotted instantly unless it was done by an expert, which meant that she would have to rob the bank regardless.

She looked up as Vanessa and Callie walked in the door. "Found them!" Vanessa announced triumphantly.

"Even better," said Callie "The owner of the building applied for a permit to renovate the basement and the ground floor. He had to file the papers at City Hall so we have a decent set of blueprints for the building they are in." (No idea if this is true)

"Terrific," said Laura. "I've been looking into the bank. I know we talked about this, but I really think I should do this myself." She raised a hand as Callie put a hand on her hip and Vanessa opened her mouth. "This is happening because of me. I can't let you commit a crime because I was once a thief."

"But we're not stealing!" protested Vanessa. "We're just borrowing it for a little while before we give it back. None of us is either going to open it. The box is probably empty anyway!"

"That sounds just like the things I used to tell myself. You're on a slippery slope."

"Three of us are better than one," Callie chimed in. "We'll have some faith in ourselves."

"Besides," said Vanessa seeing that Laura still wanted to lock them in a room to keep them from going "Are you still going to be able to get in without our help? No offense, but security has dramatically improved in the last twenty years."

"I could manage it," said Laura stubbornly. After a full minute she added "Probably." Another long pause followed. "If you commit to this, you will do exactly as I tell you to. If we are about to get caught, you will leave immediately and I will be the only one arrested. Is that clear?"

"Uh-huh."

"I won't leave you!"

"It's the only way."

"Yes," Vanessa finally conceded.

"Then we're on for tomorrow night." Her eyes gleamed with purpose and excitement. A good part of Laura Basden was back.

The case Laura asked Callie about is one of the Hardy Boys Casefiles. I can't remember which one. If anyone knows, that would be great.


	10. Chapter 10

Stakeouts, Fenton thought are not all they are cracked up to be

* * *

Author's note: I'm back! This chapter has actually been written for a while. It was the next chapter I was having trouble with, and I had a few real-world interruptions. And so, enjoy. If you're only interested in the robbery, skip to the next chapter 

Disclaimer: Don't own Fenton or Laura

* * *

Stakeouts, Fenton thought are not all they are cracked up to be. He had been outside the Bayport Savings Bank for a week in various disguises trying to spot anyone linked to Camarazzi.

He was currently dressed as a bum. His pants were ripped and torn and had several prominent paint stains. The writing had long since faded on his grey hooded sweatshirt. Skillful use of makeup added some lines and shadows to his face, making him appear 20 years older. But, even if he had not taken all those precautions, almost none of his friends from the NYPD would have recognized him now. He sat on the sidewalk with a cup in front of him and looked down for about half of the time. Every time he looked up, he made it a point to mumble incoherently. Once in a great while, he would point his finger in a random direction and shout.

The advantage of this ridiculous behavior was that people stayed as far away from him as possible, giving him a clear view of the entrance to the bank. Long ago, he had perfected the skill of looking out of the corner of his eye, giving him a decent view of all of his surroundings. The bank would now get busy around lunch hour, and he needed to pay especially close attention.

He noticed the VW Bug enter the parking lot next to the bank entrance. Momentarily forgetting his cover, he stared openmouthed as Laura (not Joie!) emerged from the passenger seat carrying a purse. She held hands with the black-haired man who got out of the driver's seat and as she walked into the bank. She had not even bothered with a disguise and matched the picture of her he had received perfectly. Besides, he would know that purposeful, yet feminine, walk anywhere.

He decided that it would be worth the risk to get closer to the car to see the license plate number. Mumbling to himself, he got up and staggered to the side of the sidewalk and clumsily made his way toward the parking lot.

Five minutes later, Laura and her partner emerged from the bank. Fenton glared at them from a distance as Laura gave him a long kiss before he got back into the car and drove off. Laura then walked down a side street and Fenton cautiously followed her. She ate a sandwich as she leisurely walked along the bustling street of Bayport and entered the park. She walked over to the fountain in the middle of the park, took off her shoes and submerged her feet in the water.

Two minutes later a second man arrived. This man was older, about 35. He was wearing casual jeans, but had an unmistakable watchful air about him. He did not put his feet in the fountain, but sat on the edge and ran his hand through the water. Fenton could tell that their conversation was intense and decided it was worth a small risk to get closer.

"- Beth can stay with some old friends of mine in Utah," Laura was saying. "They think I work as a secretary. I'll let them know to expect her within the week."

"Thank you," the man said gratefully. "Once that is settled, I can get out of here. I'll pick her up and disappear."

"I wish I could," said Laura softly. "But there is no way I can leave right now."

"Why don't you?"

"I'm almost ready, but Thomas isn't. Even after what he did, I still can't imagine life without him."

"He sold you out, Laura. I wouldn't even do that to my _ex-wife_. He did that to his girlfriend."

Refusing to meet Jim's eyes, Laura went on "Eric has promoted me and I now will get 10 of all the proceeds. I'm in too deep anyway."

"The last person he promoted ended up dead within six months. He was a good friend of mine."

Laura's shock was reflected in her eyes and she took her feet out of the pool and quickly put on her shoes. "We opened savings deposit box number 111," Laura mumbled.

"Here's the paperwork," she added, shoving a folder into Jim's hand and putting her purse back over her shoulder.

Jim's eyes followed her as she walked out of the park without saying goodbye to him. He knew that he had shaken her, but he wasn't sorry. If she wanted to ruin her life by hanging around with idiots, she needed to do it with her eyes open. He stood up from the edge of the fountain and stretched. Now with Beth out of the way–

_Why was that bum following Laura? Did this creep think that he could try to rob her?_ Jim started to warn her but paused. The bum was already in the park when he arrived and was close enough to hear their conversation. Even now, he was walking on the other side of the street from her and staying back far enough for Laura not to notice him. Jim put on a burst of speed and turned on to a nearby street. As he made his way through Bayport's side streets, he hoped that he would be able to find out who this was.

Jim emerged from a side street and quickly sat down at the nearest bench, pretending he was waiting for the bus. He took a hat out of his pocket and pulled it on low over his head to make sure he wasn't recognized and looked out from under the brim.

On the other side of the street, Laura was walking on his right. He looked to his left for the pursuer. The mysterious person was now walking upright and had gotten rid of the sweatshirt. He now looked like a painter on the way home from work, except he didn't have a paintbrush sticking out of his pocket. Jim's eyes traveled to his face and he was able to see that the "bum", who he was now sure was an undercover cop, was a lot younger than he had thought. He raised his head for a closer look and recognized Fenton Hardy.

Unlike the rest of the Camarazzi gang, Jim had grown up in New York City. His brother had been arrested by Fenton four years ago. Even though Luke hated cops, he had a certain respect for Fenton.

_We had it planned out brilliantly. Everything was done perfectly down to the last detail. Until Fenton found us. We eventually set a trap for him, and he knowingly walked into it with very little backup and got away. The guy has guts. _

The guy has guts. For Luke, that was the highest compliment he could give anyone, cop or no. Although he should hate Fenton for putting his brother away, he knew Luke would not want him to. Jim kept watching Fenton and his jaw dropped. Fenton was looking at Laura the way he had looked at his ex-wife before the marriage went south.

_Fenton Hardy is in love with one of the most talented thieves I've ever known. I don't think they were only talking about color hues in Philadelphia. Well, none of my business. _Besides, he was late for a meeting.

Ten minutes later he approached the current Camarazzi hideout in an isolated house on the outskirts of Bayport. Schooling his expressions to perfect stillness, he quietly opened the door and slipped inside. The drab hall had a single lamp on the table with a cracked oval mirror above it.

Walking down the hall, he stopped outside the kitchen and heard voices as he was about to open the door.

"We'll get rid of her. After we're in the bank, I'll get the safe deposit box then send her away to get the cash to make it look like a standard robbery. I'll take the safe deposit box and leave. When the cops come, she'll be the only one left in the bank."

Jim was stunned. _Thomas was talking about Laura? Was he out of his mind?_

"That won't be enough." Jim had always hated Eric's nasal voice. Since he now hated the man, the sound of the voice filled him with a rage which he quickly suppressed. "Once she's in prison, I'll arrange for her disposal".

"If you insist, Dad. After all, she betrayed me with that Fenton Hardy." _Stinking coward! _Jim yelled silently. _Can't you see that your Dad just wants the money for himself and doesn't care about you! _Although Jim had long wondered what Laura ever saw in the man, this was extreme.

Their voices faded as they moved into the next room. Jim laid his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. Luke never would have let him get messed up with this crowd. In their day, you didn't sell fellow thieves out to the cops or the boss and did not mess with families. _Luke _he sighed. _You warned me to stay with what I could handle. Luke, who had told him to always be an honorable thief…_ Jim had his own moral code, and deliberate violence against a partner-in-crime was not part of it. But, judging from Laura's reaction when he had tried to warn her earlier, he didn't think she'd believe him now. Gritting his teeth and not believing what he was about to do, he opened the door again and left as silently as he had entered.

"Fenton," he greeted the man who stood in front of him in the line at the local subway shop two hours later. "You're surprisingly easy to track down."

Fenton spun around and eyed Jim warily. "Do I know you?" he asked, realizing a second later that this was the person who had met with Laura earlier that day. He was thankful that they were in a public place and looked around for the exits.

"You should," Jim said. "You put my brother away four years ago."

"Well, I'm not going to say I'm sorry," said Fenton reasserting himself.

_He'll do, _Jim thought and steered Fenton toward a table. "When you are following someone, make sure nobody is following you. Also, your part-time secretary forwards all your office mail to the post office next door."

"Thanks for the tip," said Fenton coloring slightly. _That's the great thing about PI work, _he thought. _The entire police department doesn't know when you make a dumb mistake. _"I doubt you chased me down to tell me how to catch you."

"I'm here on behalf of the woman I met with earlier," he said staring straight at Fenton and was rewarded when Fenton averted his gaze.

"Don't worry. She has no idea that I'm here or that you're in love with her." A brief flash of emotion showed in Fenton's eyes before they became cold and hard.

"Leave her out of this," he said leaning across the table until he was inches from Jim's nose.

"Relax man. She'd be dead now if her idiot boyfriend knew for sure. I'm leaving this gang as soon as I can. Eric Camarazzi threatened my daughter which is an absolute no-no."

"B-Boyfriend?" Fenton sputtered and leaned back. His mind returned to the man he had seen Laura with earlier that day.

'Yeah, she's going out with Eric's son, Thomas Camarazzi."

Jim enjoyed seeing Fenton reduced to a stunned silence. _Payback for Luke_, he thought and relished the moment as the thought cheered him immensely. But Fenton was now speaking.

" Why are you here?" he asked, displaying the "Fenton Hardy look" that compelled a response. Jim now understood why Luke respected Fenton so much.

"Thomas and Eric are planning on letting her take the fall for the next job. After that, they are going to arrange for her to die in prison." Jim's serious look convinced Fenton that this was the truth. "I may have my own flaws, but I draw the line at certain things. As you heard from our conversation earlier," he flashed a humorless grin, "she's not going to believe me if I raise the subject again."

"He's going out with her, and he's going to let someone kill her? That's cold."

"The guy is borderline insane," Jim replied. "Only reason he's allowed in at all is because of his father. She's changed since Philadelphia. We've all noticed it, but nobody dares to say so to her face."

"Thank you," said Fenton softly as he stared at a spot on the table. _It's my fault, I have to take care of this. _He had one more question.

"How do I find her?"

"You're the detective. Figure it out yourself!" Jim got up from the table and was gone.

One week later Fenton sat on a bench with a bag of white bread as the pigeons gathered around him. He then spoke to the woman next to him.

"Art student, Joie?" he inquired. "Do you really know anything about art, _Laura_?" Laura tried to bolt but Fenton grabbed her arm and made her sit down. "Answer the question. Was every conversation we had a lie?"

"Yes and no, Frank, the birdwatcher," she retorted. "I did study art in college and things aren't always what our minds think they are. Is it time for me to call a lawyer, _Fenton_?"

"I'm not here to arrest you – I'm a PI, not a cop. You knew who I was the entire time?"

"Once a cop, always a cop. Only after the first time we met. With your reputation, I had assumed you knew from the start. Why aren't you arresting me?"

"I only found out who you were after you left. I couldn't prove that much in court and arresting you now won't get me to the others. Anyway, I'm here to warn you. You're going to take the fall for the next job."

"What?!" she was so shocked that her voice rose and she started to look at him.

"Don't look at me!"

"Give me some bread." She turned toward him to take it and continued. "Now, what are you talking about?"

"Thomas and Eric are going to make sure you take the fall for the next job. And then after you have been imprisoned, you will be killed. You know they've done that before."

"How do you know about this?" Her voice was filled with disbelief.

"I'm an investigator. I've been investigating."

"Was it Jim? He's always been overprotective. With his daughter, maybe he's making up stories."

Fenton ignored the question and continued: "He's using you to make his father proud. Now that you have outshone him, he will hurt you… especially if he knows you as well as I do… if he knows that you do not love him."

"I love him! How dare you think that you know about me?"

Fenton looked at the lake and spoke "I can accept it if you don't love me. But you are too honest to believe that Thomas loves you."

"I-I-I" Laura's mind went blank and she felt suddenly warm. She had known Fenton Hardy for about three months and had seen him less than a dozen times. Yet, he knew the best way to get under her skin.

Fenton looked right at her and continued "If it's a chance between the life of crime and him, you'd pick him. But he'd pick the life of crime. I've seen how you two have looked at each other over the last week."

"You've been spying!"

"Detecting. And by the way, you're one of the easiest people to follow. You never look around."

"Thomas would never do what you are saying," Laura declared, shaking her head. "He would let me go. Now, are you going to try to follow me? I'd hate to have to hurt you." Laura got up from the bench and walked off without saying goodbye.


	11. Chapter 11

The Past Returned Chapter 11

Author's note: I had a real problem with this chapter. I found that I'm more comfortable writing character development than action scenes. But, I'm ok with the result. I know absolutely nothing about computer software and committing a robbery, which made writing this rather interesting.

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters. Also, do not try this. First of all, it's wrong. Second of all, I highly doubt it would work.

Callie shivered as she zipped up her jacket and adjusted her shoulder bag. Although she had not been bothered by the chill when they had left the house, the temperature seemed to have dropped ten degrees in the last ten minutes.

The now whipped through the trees and tipped over a nearby garbage can with a crash. Callie jumped and then tried to look as nonchalant as her companions.

Vanessa had opted for loose fitting black clothes. She had just finished a meditation/calming breathing exercise that she claimed had cleared her head and allowed her to think and focus more clearly. It seemed to have worked. If not for her clothes, she could have looked like she was on her way to pickup a pizza.

Laura Hardy had disappeared. In her place was Laura Basden. Her blue eyes were intense and focused. All of her movements were methodical and precise. This was a strong and self-confident woman who was willing to relive her past returned to get her family back.

Callie just felt awkward and ridiculous and tried not to look nervous. Since she neither had made a living as an experienced thief nor possessed extensive knowledge of martial arts beyond basic self-defense, she could make herself useful by carrying the equipment.

They were in a park five blocks away from the bank. As children and teenagers, Callie and Vanessa had played soccer and Frisbee on the grass. Whenever she was feeling sad or depressed and wanted to be alone, Callie came to the fountain and put her feet in the water until she had mentally worked out what was bothering her. But that was no comfort now. The fountain was turned off at nighttime and the distorted shadows of playground equipment made the entire park rather spooky. Since there was always a few cars in the park parking lot, Vanessa's car did not look out of place. Although Callie would have wanted to park closer to the bank, Laura had insisted that it was better this way. _The cops are going to look for cars making a gateway. Three women walking down the street a few blocks away won't attract as much attention. _

Laura looked at the bench were Fenton said that he had sat and listened to her conversation with Jim. _Soon, Fenton_, she thought. _I'll get you out of there soon. I never meant for this to happen. _The moment for sentiment was past. It was time to go. Laura motioned to Callie and Vanessa and started walking in the direction of the bank. It was time to put her rusty skills to use and hope for the best.

Laura hugged the wall of the bank as she approached the camera that was pointed at the entrance with Callie and Vanessa right behind her. Taking a thin collapsible pole from Callie with a fingernail sized electronic on it, she reached up and attached it to the wire with a magnet. The camera briefly flickered and then froze, ensuring that the image of the deserted entrance to the bank would remain on any video monitors. She made sure to leave the hardware attached to the wire. Might as well let the cops know how it was done so they could tell Mr. Smith to buy a better security system. Besides, she didn't plan on doing this again.

Vanessa, Laura and Callie put on black gloves and masks before moving to the front door. Laura pried off the cover of the alarm code box with the screwdriver that Callie had passed her. It seemed to take her a very long time to manipulate the wires, but eventually the red light turned to green. Vanessa whipped out a can of spray black paint and painted the camera that was covering the inside door to the bank. Laura moved past her and attached a similar gadget to that camera wire. Except this time, all of the cameras in the bank were frozen. Laura and Callie headed for Mr. Smith's office while Vanessa went downstairs to the entrance of the bank vault.

"Hey, there are no cameras here," said Callie. "Wonder what he does in his spare time?!" she added sarcastically.

"Who knows," said Laura as she retrieved the bug and another small square black box-shaped object from under the desk where Vanessa had left it. "Great! This is still working. She turned the computer on and waited for it to warm up. Instead of entering the username password when she was prompted, she held the black box at next to the computer and the username and password flashed on the screen. _Alright! Now I just need to disable the alarm code for the vault gates downstairs. _She got to work with Callie looking over her shoulder.

"Stop!" said Callie. Laura looked up in annoyance. "If you do that, you'll be locked out of the system and the alarms will go off."

"No, I'm ok," said Laura calmly turning back to the computer screen, glad that she would almost be done.

"Uh-uh," persisted Callie emphatically. "That system's only been upgraded within the past few years."

Laura stood up and gestured toward the computer. "Go ahead," she said.

"I-I'm sorry I didn't mean…"

"Leave emotion out of it. Just do what you need to," said Laura Basden firmly. She walked to the window and looked out to give Callie some breathing room. Outside the "closed" neon sign of the 7-11 flickered erratically. The street was still deserted as the law-abiding citizens of Bayport were in bed.

Callie got to work. Five minutes later she looked up. "I took care of that security system," she said without any trace of pride. "But there is another one giving me trouble."

Laura leaned over Callie's shoulder. She was impressed with Callie's work and put a hand on her shoulder. If it wasn't for Callie, she would have made a serious mistake a little while ago. She smiled and tapped out a few more keystrokes and the downstairs gate opened as Callie looked amazedly at her. "You didn't think Frank got his skills from nowhere do you?" she inquired cockily with a raised eyebrow. She looked so much like her dark-haired son at that moment that Callie couldn't respond.

Vanessa was waiting at the bottom of the stairs glancing impatiently at her watch. It had been a good 20 minutes since they had started the break in process and ten minutes since she had been waiting here. But to her, those thirty minutes seemed like thirty hours. _No wonder Frank and Joe can solve mysteries _she mused _all they have to do is show up afterwards and very calmly solve the crime with a little bit of thinking that a kindergartener could manage. It's the criminal who has to put in ALL the hard work of breaking in beforehand. _She was on a roll. _First, I have to wear this dorky outfit. Secondly, I have to sneak around and practically glue myself against a rough brick wall. And then, I almost drop the spray paint can and get paint all over myself. Imagine how that would have been! Compared to this, graphing design is a piece of cake! _A soft buzz interrupted her thoughts and filled the narrow space, indicating that the gate was now open.

Vanessa pushed the gate open and very slowly entered the vault. Although there was no light in the room, the safe deposit boxes gleamed with a silver metallic light and energy. The stale air and small space reminded her of an ancient cave more than a modern building. From her pocket, she took out a penlight. The boxes were numbered 200-700 and each box was clearly marked. Box #341 was on the left hand side and about waist high from the floor.

Taking a tube of liquid nitrogen that Callie had given her earlier, Vanessa bent poured it onto the safe deposit box. While she waited for it to take effect, she sprayed some of the other boxes for good measure as well. She took a look at all of the safe deposit boxes and looked down at the tube in her hand. She wondered if she had time to figure out which safety deposit box was her aunt's. She knew there was a diamond ring in there. The richest family in Bayport must keep their valuables locked up too… Oops, the nitrogen was working. Taking the screwdriver, she gingerly poked at the door and was rewarded when it came completely off the hinges. Leaving the damaged door and empty tube on the floor, she took out the safety deposit box with both hands.

BRING! BRING! BRING!

Vanessa saw the doors ten feet away start to automatically shut. Putting the heavy metal box in the crook of her left elbow, she ran for them and squeezed through. At the foot of the stairs a gate was starting to crash down from the ceiling as she rolled under it, came back to her feet and started going up the stairs as the jewelry within the box rattled. Her aikido instructor would be very proud that she had managed to keep a hold of the box this entire time.

She met Callie and Laura at the top of the stairs as they emerged from Mr. Smith's office. She looked at the slightly reckless and maniacal looks in their eyes and knew that look was reflected in her own. Even though they couldn't see each other's mouths, they grinned at each other as they ran across the marble floor. They ignored the teller's booths and the red velvet ropes that formed the lines that customers would occupy the next morning and headed for the best exit.

All three women ran into the concrete stairwell and up to the third floor. Emerging from the stairwell, they ran to the window overlooking a side street that had a fire escape outside it.

As soon as Callie threw a chair through the window, a second alarm went off. Scrambling through the window, Laura climbed out on the fire escape and started going up with Callie and Vanessa following her. As she reached the roof, Callie opened her shoulder bag and passed the equipment to Vanessa and Laura and pulled out her own set of ropes. She then put the safe deposit box in her shoulder bag and all three women rappelled down the wall of the bank into the back alley. Leaving the ropes tossing in the wind, the three women slipped into an adjoining alley at a right angle to the bank and emerged two streets away. They turned the corner of that street and headed back to the park as police sirens sounded from across town_. The notion on the blueprints said there is a two minute response time after the alarm is tripped_, Laura thought. _We were out in a minute and forty five seconds. Not bad for an old lady!_

"That was fun!" exclaimed Vanessa gleefully as she put the safe-deposit box on the kitchen table a half an hour later. "And it was so easy too! If the alarm hadn't gone off I could have found my aunt's diamond ring. "

"_Fun!_" hissed Callie. "Have you lost your mind?"

"Vanessa's right, I haven't had this much fun in years," Laura broke in fervently. "That was a lot more satisfying than making oatmeal-chocolate-chip cookies and taking out the trash."


	12. Chapter 12

Special thanks to Red Hardy and KCS for reviewing the last chapter.

Disclaimer: Don't own anyone except for the horribly insane Thomas and unidentified goons.

_This is SO boring_, thought Joe.He was sitting on his mattress, the same mattress that he had slept on for the last two nights. He had just made his left and right hands compete against each other in a game of "rock/paper/scissors" and his left hand beat his right hand 20-17. Getting up, he stretched his arms over his head and silently jogged in place.

As far as kidnappings went, this one wasn't horrible. Food and water had been brought to them twice a day. One of the goons had actually gone out of his way to slip Frank an ice pack on the way back from one of his bathroom trips. "I ain't doing this 'cause I care about you or him," he growled when Frank had started to grudgingly thank him. "I just don't want to deal with hospital visits and that kind of crap." But there was still Dad. _Dad_… Joe turned to look at him.

Fenton had hardly spoken since Thomas had come in the first night. He had just stared listlessly at nothing in particular and only acknowledged either of his sons when they made a concentrated effort to talk to him. He did get up and walk around the room once in a while, but the blank expression never left his face.

Frank and Joe could only talk to each other in hushed whispers so they didn't disturb Fenton. Neither of them had any idea who Thomas was or how their mother could be implicated in any of this. Although both of them could think of ways to try and escape, they were not sure their father was up to it, and leaving him was out of the question. Besides, if they tried by themselves and failed to escape, it would be Fenton who would suffer the consequences before they could return for help. Frank was now sitting with his back against the wall and his elbows on his knees in front of him. The grim set of his jaw and the rigid posture of his back told Joe that Frank was far from resigned and would keep fighting. _That's my brother! _

Frank watched Joe try to work off some steam. He was surprised that Joe had been able to keep a hold of his temper for this long, even though he knew that it was mostly out of concern for their father that Joe had not tried to punch a hole in the wall. He couldn't blame Joe if he did. For both of them, it was not knowing the _why _that was the most baffling. Sooner or later, most criminals couldn't help but divulge their reasons and motives. Thomas seemed to know more about their lives than they did, but had not told them. And their Dad was off in his own world and currently inaccessible. If this continued too much longer, Frank would seriously begin to consider putting his own fist through the wall.

The door to their small room opened and Thomas walked in and headed straight for Fenton. His bodyguards moved into the room and glared at Frank and Joe, but did not try to restrain them. The message was clear: Back off!

"They've just finished robbing the bank," said Thomas gloatingly. "I knew it would be easy to get her to cooperate."

"They?!" Joe blurted out.

"Your mother, Miss Shaw and Miss Bender," answered Thomas without looking at him. "I daresay they had some fun."

"Fun!" exclaimed Frank jerking to his feet and taking a step forward, ignoring the muscular guy who put out a hand to stop him, "What did you drag her into this for, you leave her out of this!"

Thomas didn't even bother to respond and addressed himself to Fenton: "Since she actually behaved herself for once, your sons will be released tomorrow. If you give her up right now, you will be released, too."

"You're lying," Fenton finally said. His voice was low and unsteady, but it grew stronger. "You're going to kill me anyway. All of us."

" No, no, you don't understand," Thomas said sounding genuinely frustrated. "I need to do this to be able to move on. Thanks to you and her, my father died while he was still in prison. I didn't even know that he died and could only visit his grave. After that night on the pier, I woke up in a hospital two years after he was arrested. It took another entire year for me to get part of my memory back, after which he was dead. It was only a year ago that I remembered who both of you were. I've seen her face every night before I go to sleep for over 20 years, but she was only a nameless beauty. You were only the mysterious guy who stole her away from me; I could never remember either of your names or your particular face until a year ago. Since then, I've been waiting for this moment." He looked extremely satisfied with himself as in his mind he saw his vision fulfilled and stared at Fenton. "Acknowledge that she's mine. That's all I want. That's all I need to get on with my life. And then, I'll finally be free."

Fenton thought back to a night years earlier. A night when he had lost all hope, but Laura had come through for him. "She will come for me**," **he said firmly. "I'm never giving her up willingly. She's not mine to give."

Brown eyes met green and the green eyes wavered. The brown eyes held strength that came from such faith and devotion that the envy and anger in the green eyes could not overcome. But Thomas continued on and softly and beseechingly tried to make his point. "I woke up in a sterile white room. It was torture, Fenton. There was nothing to focus on, only the constant buzz of those awful machines. Then I saw a flash of blue. Those understanding blue eyes brought me back. They gave me the strength to get out of that hospital bed and keep living every day. Now, just try to imagine how I felt when I remembered that not only did Laura hate me –"

"If I recall correctly, she tried to kill you," interrupted Fenton angrily. "We both thought she had succeeded. Don't feed me some crap –"

"Not only did she hate ME!" yelled Thomas, "but she married my enemy and had two brats who followed in his footsteps instead of being the rightful heirs to the Camarazzi legacy." Thomas turned around to face Frank and Joe. "Embrace what should have been your birthright," he commanded. "Join me and I'll let your father go."

"Really?" asked Joe sarcastically. "Let me think, join an insane madman and go down with him after Dad catches us? I think I'll pass on that."

"Frankie boy? I've heard you're twice as talented as your mother. I could provide a much more valuable outlet for your skills than the pitiful government jobs you're hoping to get."

"No one calls me Frankie boy. I prefer to work for the good guys anyway, thank you."

Thomas stepped backwards toward the door and surveyed the three united men who were all staring furiously at him. "Have it your way then," he muttered. "I can't wait to see Laura's face when I put three bullets into your heads tomorrow!"

The door slammed, leaving the three Hardys locked in once again.

Fenton Hardy laughed. It was a laugh of relief and exultation. In the darkness he could feel Frank and Joe moving toward him, both of them thinking that he had finally cracked.

"Don't worry," he said in his normal voice. "I'm ok." He could feel Frank and Joe's immense relief and realized how much his behavior had troubled them. "I'm sorry," he added regretfully. As a father, it was his responsibility to protect them and he had failed miserably. "I should have told you two what was going on earlier, maybe both Laura and I should have."

"Forgiven, Dad" said Joe smiling shyly. "So what gives?"

Gritting his teeth Fenton started with a phone call he received shortly after becoming a private investigator that brought him to Philadelphia. He mentioned the meeting with "Joie" at the museum and those hours he spent trying to figure out how the thieves were going to rob the museum, and how all of his leads kept turning into nothing. And how he met this woman who made him feel like a whole person and not only a detective. And –

"Wait," said Frank harshly. "Mom's a thief who worked with a gang?"

"She was," answered Fenton calmly. "But not anymore."

"You know as well as I do that people don't change," his son answered.

"Frank," Joe interjected. "If Callie oh, I don't know, stole something, would you –"

"But she didn't just make a mistake!" Frank replied. "She spent years of her life affiliated with these people."

"You love her and you would immediately assume it was a mistake. Iola was my entire life. If she had murdered someone, I would have still loved her and forgiven her. Why is it so hard to accept that mom made some very bad decisions in her life before we were born? "

"Because all this time, both of you lied to us!" Frank shouted at Fenton. "You raised us to always tell the truth, to know right from wrong, to help other people, and now I find out that the great Fenton Hardy has a wife for a criminal and is a hypocrite to boot!"

"Frank," said Fenton. "If you choose to turn your back on us after you have heard the entire story, I won't stop you. But there are a few things you need to know. Do you remember when you came home your first year in college after having such a hard time with your computer science course?"

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"Be patient! I told you that I would have a professional colleague look at the textbook to see if they could make the instructions easier to understand."

"Uh-huh. Then you mailed me those notes a week later that explained the book clearly. There were about fifty pages of them. That's the only reason I passed the class."

"There was no colleague, Frank. It took your mother six solid days to write up those notes."

"What?!"

"Because of our looks, everyone assumes that you and I have most everything in common. And while we have similarities, I'm a dork with computers. Half of the time, I can barely turn them on! That's why I still rely on my paper files. You and mom are the computer geniuses. And don't for a minute think that she's never secretly helped me on cases every once in a great while."

"If that's true," said Joe. "Why haven't you told us this before now?"

"As for that," said Fenton, "she needs to tell you herself. I wanted to tell you, but it was her decision." His face left no room for argument.

"Looks like she won't get the chance," said Frank gloomily. "Joe and I have been sharpening our forks with a loose pebble and on the edge of the bedposts and planned to overpower them when they took us out to go to the bathroom, but they won't be back before tomorrow."

"She will," Fenton said confidently. "She came for me once, and she'll come for me again." He decided not to press his luck by mentioning that, judging from what Thomas had said, Callie and Vanessa would probably show up as well. He wisely changed the subject and reverted back to his tale.

"Hang on Dad," said Joe an hour later, "She didn't believe you when you tried to warn her, but earlier you said that she tried to kill Thomas?"

Fenton nodded and picked up the story again…


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13 revised

* * *

Thanks to my reviewers! Here's the next chapter which should answer some questions.

Red: I actually identify with Frank – after all, he's the logical one who would expect everything to be black and white. His reaction was also a swipe at the Callie/Frank relationship which I've never been crazy about. But yes, the reunion should be interesting. We'll have to see! It's been fun giving Laura some Frank-like characteristics and Fenton some Joe-like ones, although I've tried to do the reverse as well.

LauraHardy: Nope, it doesn't mean anything.

Disclaimer: If I did own Fenton and Laura, I would lease them out to fabulous authors who would write great books. Sadly, I don't own them.

* * *

Fenton knew that the robbery would occur _soon,_ but he could do nothing. Although he knew who the robbers-to-be were, he had no idea where or how they planned to strike. For the first time in his private investigative career, he had started to wonder if he was getting in over his head and it was now time to call in the FBI.

After his conversation with Laura a week ago, she had become more difficult to follow and he had sometimes lost sight of her on the streets of Bayport. Judging from her actions, she still did not believe his warning. If he called the FBI, the only place he could be sure of seeing her again was either Ossining or Attica. And that was why he was pacing in his hotel room instead of doing something productive.

There was a reason why you did not mix the personal and professional in life. As an investigator, his personal feelings were irrelevant, and he had long since learned not to wonder about the past lives of those he put behind bars. And heaven help you if you fell in love with… _no, I'm not in love, I'm just …attracted...and its time for some fresh air. _

On that warm night, Fenton headed for the Bayport docks. He passed many houses and envied the mothers, fathers and children who were safely sleeping without any problems that turned them into insomniacs. He imagined that once his life became a little more stable, he would start a family. But he would need to find a woman who was willing to live with the risks of a family of detectives. He would do everything to protect those he loved, but there was no way he could ever stop his work completely; it was in his blood.

He sipped a coffee purchased at a nearby diner and absently watched the tankers and barges load and unload their cargo in the distance. He tried very hard to keep his mind of a blonde-haired woman with blue eyes, and didn't even turn around when he heard her voice in his head asking him what the heck he thought he was doing.

"What the heck do you think you're doing?" the voice insisted asked angrily, except this time it seemed to be coming from behind him. Fenton turned around and promptly dropped his coffee on the pier. His brain registered her cold eyes staring daggers at him before it registered the gun that was in her hand and pointed at his chest.

"My job," he said as calmly as he could manage and hoped she didn't notice his unsteady hands. "The real question is why you are pointing the gun at me."

"Because you're finished Fenton," she said quietly. "Too nosy for your own good." She gestured with her firearm. "And now you are going to pay for it. Move."

"I called the FBI," he bluffed. "They'll be expecting me to be in their offices at six in the - ."

"Nice try," she snapped. "But you're a very bad liar. Now, stop stalling and get going." Deciding that a determined woman with a gun was more trouble than she was worth, Fenton followed her instructions. She directed him to a nondescript warehouse that had a particularly strong deadbolt on the door that burst open as they reached it.

"Hey Fenton, Laura did it! I knew she would," said Thomas looking at both of them as they entered the warehouse and smiling broadly at Laura. "Hey Dad!" he yelled turning around. "I finally caught Fenton Hardy!"

"You?" Fenton asked sarcastically. "Seems to me that your girlfriend here did all the work." Thomas was saved from responding by a booming voice that echoed across the space.

"You idiot!" Fenton had never before seen Eric Camarazzi, but the physical resemblance between him and Thomas was unmistakable. "What are you thinking?" he yelled at his son. "Why don't you just stand outside the Bayport police station with a bullhorn and announce what we're doing here!"

"But Dad," Thomas said patiently. "I caught Fenton Hardy before he caught us." At that point, Fenton only thought that Thomas looked like a fifth grader who had won the spelling bee.

"Fenton ain't a psychic," said Eric through clenched teeth. "He's been trying to follow us for the past week and has absolutely no idea what we've been doing. Now you've created a mess at exactly the wrong time."

"No, see Dad. I really saved us. This is why he won't come busting in later this morning with 50 cops while we're robbing the bank."

"Actually son, this is why Laura's been promoted and not you. Now, figure something out."

"We can lock him in the storage room," said Laura who had been watching this exchange from behind Fenton. "Then we'll shoot him outside later when the tides go out to the ocean. His body will never be found."

"Fenton," said Eric gruffly motioning all three of them deeper into the warehouse. He opened a cabinet and poured one glass of whisky for himself and one for Fenton. "Do you know why I've deliberately avoided you? Why all Camarazzi operations in New York City have been stopped? Why I've kept tabs on you since you broke up that drug ring in your high school and watched you from afar?"

"It's because we're so much alike," he continued, ignoring the baleful look Fenton threw him. "Pure raw talent. An ability to see the connections and put that talent to use. Tenacity. Courage to the point of stupidity. And loyalty to a cause, to a mission, and to those around us even when they disappoint us," he finished glancing at Thomas. "So, I'm compelled to make you an offer." He faced Fenton alone.

"I can make you the greatest private investigator in the United States. The New Jersey mob, the Boston Irish mafia, the Amaldo syndicate and most, but not all, of the drug cartels in the United States. You go about your business. I'll contact you when I've got a tip for you and you can pick them all off one by one. I swear nobody will ever know. Within ten years your career will be made and you can retire."

"And in return?" asked Fenton warily as he took a sip of whisky. He hated the stuff, but knew better than to turn down free booze.

"In return, you'll leave me alone. I'll run my affairs. We'll call it a mutual non-aggression pact. You don't burn me, I don't burn you. Now please, don't tell me you aren't tempted."

"For about a second," said Fenton abandoning the whisky. "But if I took your offer, I'd wake up one day and look in the mirror and find out that I've become you. I'm nothing like you."

"Then you're going to die," said Eric simply as he put the whisky bottle back in the cabinet.

"I'll die having lived," he snapped back. "That drug ring in high school, blackmails in college, who knows how many cases as a detective. I'll have done more with my life than you ever will. And one day you'll all be caught, brought down by greed like every other lowlife out there," he added bitterly.

"Hey!" Thomas interjected. "Don't talk about my fiancée that way." _Fiancée??_ Fenton's stomach dropped. He glanced at Laura who looked down at her hands. There, on her finger was a diamond ring. How could he have missed that earlier? He could only think of one thing to say.

"Congratulations," he said meeting both of their eyes. "You two deserve each other."

Locked into the underground storage room beneath the warehouse, Fenton fumed. He had had such hopes for this woman who reminded him of himself. That desire to tackle a challenge, her creativity and spunk. He had loved her. But she had betrayed every single positive thought he had ever held about her, and she certainly would not lift a finger to help him. Those were her choices, and he could do nothing to change them. Instead, he could be proud of all the choices he had made and all the people he had helped. He had meant what he said earlier; he would die grateful that he had lived.

The sun rose behind Fenton as he faced Thomas at the edge of the pier with his back toward the Atlantic. Laura approached both of them with a cold smile on her face and no warmth in her eyes. She kissed Thomas on the cheek and draped her arm around his shoulders as Thomas smirked, raised his gun, and then crumpled to the ground as Laura hit him on the head with the concealed wrench that she had hid in her hand.

"I was so scared!" Laura burst out and all of her words seemed to come out of her mouth at once as she moved toward Fenton. "Thomas came running in and said that you were here. He said that if I wanted to prove you were nothing to me, then I would bring you to him so he could impress Eric. If I didn't do it, he would have killed me and then tracked you down and killed you, too. I'm so sorry for everything I said earlier. Even if you don't believe me, I really, really, really didn't mean it."

"You're not engaged?" said Fenton staring at her.

"NO!" She took the diamond ring off her finger and threw it angrily into the ocean. "Cheap junk. He just stuck it on my finger and assumed that we were engaged. He didn't even bother asking if I wanted to marry him."

"Oh," said Fenton slightly ashamed. "But you have to admit that you put on a very good act-"

"No time," Laura interrupted. "They're pulling out of here in 20 minutes." She reached into her pocket and pulled out a CD-ROM. Taking a deep breath, she determinedly handed it to Fenton.

"That is everything you need to put the entire Camarazzi syndicate away. Eric's entire operation. It's all there. Now, you need to go."

"But you – "Fenton started.

"You showed me there's another way. A way to live a good life."

"So you'll come with me?" he asked eagerly.

"I'll be gone by the time you get back," she said avoiding his eyes. "There are some things I need to do before turning myself in."

"I want to see you again."

"I'll always find you. Just go!"

Fenton turned around and took three steps away from her. He turned back to find Laura right behind him. He bent his head down toward her upturned face and both of them threw their arms around each other and kissed.

That one passionate kiss was everything Laura had imagined it would be and more. "I love you," she murmured when she could finally speak. "But now you only have fifteen minutes left."

"I love you, too," said Fenton with an idiotic smile. "See you later," he added, and then he was gone.

"He won't be seeing you later," Thomas said. "I'm going to kill you. Then, I'll track him down and kill him too." Laura turned to face Thomas who had regained consciousness and was now pointing his gun steadily at her. For the first time in her life, Laura understood the full-force of Thomas's insanity. But she would never live with herself in the future if she didn't try to reason with him.

"I couldn't live like that anymore," she explained. "There's more to life than this. Why don't you come with me and start again, as a friend?"

"You're in love with him, aren't you?"

"Yes. Life seems so much fuller. It's like I've been living in a dark room and Fenton showed me the door and gave me back my own power to open the door and walk out into the sunshine. And there's no way I'm living in the dark again."

"The dark? The Camarazzi legacy is everything," said Thomas harshly. "It is my duty to fulfill it. I want to become the greatest con man on the entire east coast. And I want you with me."

Laura laughed. "You want, you want, you want," she mocked. "That's all you care about. You don't even care about me! It's only what I can do for you."

"That's not true!"

"It is. You just decided we were engaged without asking me. And you were planning on betraying me during the robbery." Laura still didn't quite believe Thomas was really capable of that, but Thomas's stunned expression told her that this was the truth.

"I trusted you," Laura said furiously. "I told Fenton you would never do that to me. But you did!"

"How dare you fall in love with him?" Thomas yelled waving the gun around angrily. "We were supposed to be the heirs to the Camarazzi syndicate. You don't just fall in love with anyone, which would be bad enough. You fall in love with the one person who can destroy all I've ever wanted to be."

"I never would have fallen in love with him at all if you would have let me go," Laura said sadly. "Now, because of all the good times we've shared and because I never should have let it get this far, I'm offering you one last chance. Come with me and start your life over again, or go to jail."

"Goodbye Laura" he said aiming the gun at her. "I'm going to kill you now, kill Fenton later, and then destroy every other syndicate by myself. I'll tell Fenton how much you hated him at the end before I kill him. He'll try not to believe me, but his last moments will be filled with doubt."

Laura gritted her teeth and stared at Thomas. _How far away is he? Can I kick the gun out of his hand before he shoots me…_

The foghorn blast from a passing ship shattered the silence. Resisting the urge to turn toward it, Laura moved forward as Thomas dropped his guard. Forcefully moving his gun arm out of the way with her left hand, she punched him in the eye with her right fist. Thomas kicked her in the shin and the two of them grappled, both hitting and kicking anything they could reach. Laura finally banged his hand against the railing and the gun tumbled into the water. Thomas countered with a punch to the gut that left Laura bent over and gasping.

He moved toward her with murder in his eyes as Laura tried to stand up straight. Laura leapt aside and stuck out her foot as Thomas reached for her to throw her over the railing. Thomas's momentum sent him over the railing, and Laura heard a thud as his head struck one of the posts. His body vanished with a splash into the ocean below.

_Dead before 30_, Laura thought looking at the still water. _That's how my life would have ended if I had never met Fenton. _All of a sudden the guilt that she had always blocked off and pushed to the back of her mind threatened to overwhelm her. She hadn't been involved in some of the worst crimes of the syndicate, but that was no excuse. She had known about them and she had done nothing.

She had not been completely honest with him. Despite her words, she still had not been ready to face the consequences of her actions. She had planned on starting her life as a law-abiding citizen again far away and to pop in and out of Fenton's life, here one day and gone the next. But the punishments of the court system would be nothing compared to the awful, sinking feeling that she felt now as the events of the last few years flashed through her mind. Thanks to Fenton Hardy, she finally had a chance to make things right. She walked off the pier and drove away as a swarm of police cars raced past her.


	14. Chapter 14

Thank you very much to Laura Hardy for helping me make chapter 13 so much better! Now, on to chapter 14.

Disclaimer: It's really sad when the only person you own in a chapter is the bad guy.

* * *

"Hello Thomas," Laura punched the speakerphone button, still in the throes of post-robbery euphoria. "I'm looking at three ruby rings, two diamond and sapphire necklaces and an emerald tiara. What are you looking at?" She smiled at Vanessa across the kitchen table and glanced down at the closed safe deposit box that was still lying on the Hardy's kitchen table.

"Frank and Joe,"

Vanessa stood up quickly and Laura's hand tightened on the receiver as she came crashing back down to earth. "Right now Frank has a bloody lip and Joe has a perfect black eye."

"Liar," interjected Callie, seeing Vanessa ready to yank the phone away from Laura. "Stop trying to scare us."

"Very good, Miss Shaw," the nasal voice answered. "However, Fenton was not so lucky."

"If you've hurt him," Laura began worriedly and her knuckles whitened as she gripped the phone even harder.

"If-if," Thomas mocked. "I already did. And I enjoyed it! The look on his face when I let him know that you let me know he was working late so I could kidnap him."

"Fenton trusts me," she said. "Where and when do we make the exchange?"

"Trusts you?! He's been completely catatonic sine he's been here. He knows that when you bring the box to me, you'll have reverted back to your old self, and he'll have lost you forever. Admit it, you had fun tonight and felt better than you have in years. You didn't call the cops because I scared you. You didn't call them because you wanted to have this opportunity for yourself."

"He's lying," Callie hissed in Laura's ear. "Fenton knows you're a different person than you were back then."

Thomas's voice still droned on: "What on earth could have caused you to become the picture-perfect housewife? Fenton's made you into his servant. Your entire world consists of getting dinner on the table at 5:30, and you're never allowed to use your remarkable talents and be yourself. I'm giving you the opportunity to break free, to be who you really are."

"You came through for your husband before," Callie murmured. "He knows you're not going to let him down now. And think of Frank and Joe."

Laura flashed Callie a grateful look and responded "I became a housewife because I _wanted_ to, which is more than a self-centered control-freak like yourself could understand. I pity you. You have no idea how big of a mistake you made, coming after my entire family instead of just me. And as soon as you messed with my sons, you crossed the line. Now, where and when?"

"7 am. Ellis Island Ferry. You three better be alone with no cops or they're dead." With that, Thomas hung up and Laura was left listening to the dial tone.

"Why the ferry?" Vanessa asked immediately, too scared to comment on what else Thomas had said. She sensed that bringing up those issues would be a very bad idea.

"Lots of trashcans and, benches where we'll be asked to leave the jewelry and a fairly easy gateway," Callie answered quickly, just as eager to change the subject. "Right Laura?"

Partly, but also because he doesn't intend to make the exchange at all," Laura responded. "He's going to put snipers in buildings around the area and it's busy enough that they'll be able to get away quickly after they've shot Fenton, Frank and Joe." In her heart, she had always known that it would come down to this, but actually saying it made more real.

Callie and Vanessa just stared at her openmouthed. "I rarely hear that talk from Frank and it's always a little bit of a shock," Callie said slowly. "But from you…" she just shook her head.

"He's doing it because he knows it is the best way to hurt me."

"But Frank and Joe? Wouldn't he also see them as his own potential sons and not hurt them because they are related to you?"

"At the beginning, yes. But now, he'll have tried to get Frank and Joe to turn against their father and join him," Laura said grimly. "He's put the syndicate before everything, even his personal relationships." She sighed heavily. "If he had been any different, then I would have stayed with him and none of us would be standing here today." She shook her head in amazement of how surprising life could be and continued: "If Frank and Joe were less honorable, they'd be perfect additions to his group. We know they refused to join him. As soon as they did that, their death warrants were signed. Fenton's was signed 26 years ago."

"So, what are we waiting for?" demanded Vanessa. "Let's go-" She was interrupted by insistent hammering on the back door.

Thanks to a quirky architect, the Hardys had a hallway leading to the back door, which was joined to the kitchen by a doorframe but no door. Vanessa threw a tablecloth over the safe deposit box as she heard a familiar but unwelcome voice in the hall.

"Hi Callie and Vanessa," said Sam Radley, surprised to see them as he appeared in the opening. He turned to Laura, his face filled with concern. "A friend of mine who is at the conference called me a half an hour ago. Fenton's not there, and hasn't been there all week, even though he was registered to attend. Is everything all right?"

Looking at the rugged face of the man who had always been so kind to her, Laura just _couldn't _lie to him a second time. Sam had always come through for the Hardys countless times, often without recognition. She suddenly felt terrible for keeping him in the dark about the current situation and for lying by omission over the last 20 years.

"Not really, but everything will be ok soon," she began. She paused to think of the best way to frame her words, and her eyes fell on the framed family picture on the wall. Looking at the four smiling faces and recalling a happier time, a warm feeling filled her and she realized that she had always known that everything would be alright.

"All three of them were kidnapped a few days ago. Frank was kidnapped at MIT, Joe at UCLA, and Fenton while he was on his way home. I'm meeting the kidnappers and making the exchange in a few hours."

"What? Why didn't you tell me? And don't the police know about this? Chief Collig never called me."

"They don't Sam. I'm so sorry, but I had to handle this without them. Over 25 years ago, I was a member of the Camarazzi syndicate and involved in several high-profile robberies. After I met Fenton, I turned against them and helped bring it down. The current head is my ex-boyfriend and he decided to kidnap Fenton and my sons to hurt me. I didn't call the police because I've been in hiding for the last 20 years. Some of the crimes I committed were never officially solved."

_It sounds absolutely insane when you say it like that_ she thought, stifling a giggle. But what was even more insane was that it was true.

"That is utterly ridicu- Fenton would never- what's that?" Vanessa's tablecloth had slipped and Sam noticed the silver box on the kitchen table. He moved forward, unveiled it and stood there in complete shock.

"You-you-you……You robbed the bank?"

"We helped her," Vanessa broke in. "It's what they wanted in exchange for-" her words died at the withering look Sam threw her.

"You've been hoodwinking my best friend for more than 20 years?" he asked, managing to sound puzzled, hurt and angry at the same time. "Who are you really? Laura Hardy, the devoted wife and mother or the femme fatale who seduced Fenton to further her criminal aims?"

"I didn't! I wouldn't - Fenton knows, Sam. He's always known. You can't imagine how many times he's wanted to tell you, but I wouldn't let him. I know how honest you are and that you'd never accept me." But Sam seemed lost in his own world and continued on.

"How many no-good friends do you have out there? Have you been passing information to them throughout the last 20 years? Are you responsible for the handful of cases Fenton has never solved? Because you warned them ahead of time when we were getting too close?"

"Absolutely not! How could you even think that I would do such a thing?"

"I never would have thought you could rob a bank! You really thought I would never find out about your past?"

"I keep myself out of your lives for a reason," she snapped, overwhelmed by the events of the past few days. "If this hadn't happened, it would have stayed that way. So yes, you never would have found out and never would have had any reason to know."

"Well, now I know. Not only are you a lying criminal yourself, you're leading others into criminal acts too!"

"Hey!" Vanessa broke in. "Callie and I made our own decisions."

"Look Sam, I swear by all that Fenton means to both of us, it's not what you think. I can prove it. Call-"

"Not what I think," Sam interrupted. "I'm thinking that I'm looking at one of the most manipulative women I've ever laid eyes on."

"Manipulative? You think Fenton's dumb enough to be manipulated? You think it's possible to live in a house with three detectives if you don't care for them? You cops and PIs never stop to think that some criminals are people who have made bad choices with their lives, but have the ability to change. That's a necessary part of the profession. But please, for my family's sake, don't let your professional feelings cloud your judgment. I've changed Sam. I changed after I met Fenton and since I had my sons, I've never looked back."

"If anything you said is true, if you have a single shred of decency in you, you will accompany me to the police station where you will tell Chief Collig the truth. And then, the police will start looking for Frank and Joe while we figure out what to do with you," Sam finished.

"Fine," Laura said. "I'll go with you to-"

CRASH!

Callie stood with the broken base of the lamp in her hand and looked down at the unconscious Sam Radley in stunned disbelief. Her hand was bleeding from being cut by the sharp pieces of porcelain that were scattered on the floor by her feet.

"I hit him," she whispered. "I was just so scared. I thought that you'd go to the police station and then it would be too late, and we'd never rescue them in time. All I could see was Frank's face, and I kept seeing him dead." She shook her head. She knelt down "I'm so sorry, Sam, she said urgently. "I didn't know that I was capable of that. I'm really, really sorry."

"No time," Vanessa interrupted, seeing that Callie was about to fall apart. "It's time to go. We'll rescue the guys and then apologize later." She laid an icepack on Sam's head and grabbed Callie's hand to guide her to the door.

Laura hung back and wrote a post-it note for Sam. She stuck it to his shirt and turned off the lights. The Hardy house was in darkness as the three women set off, never once looking back.


	15. Chapter 15

Author's note: I would like to thank everyone who has posted over the last week. Seeing other people write really inspired me to finish this chapter.

Disclaimer: If you think I own the Hardy characters, you are gravely mistaken.

* * *

_Manipulative_, Sam's voice echoed in her head. _Manipulative, manipulative, manipulative_. She slammed on the breaks as the light turned from yellow to red, and drummed her fingers on the steering wheel while waiting for the light to change. It would be very inconvenient to get a traffic ticket tonight. _"I'm sorry officer. I need you to come with me to rescue my family. After that, you'll probably have to arrest me…_

The smart thing would have been to call the cops and straighten the entire mess out later. Failing that, they could have just rescued the Hardys after Vanessa and Callie had found out where they were. But instead of that, she had to find those blasted plans and orchestrated a robbery that would have done 22 year old Laura Basden proud….

_Admit it, you had fun tonight and felt better than you have in years. You didn't call the cops because I scared you. You didn't call them because you wanted to have this opportunity for yourself."_

As the car jumped forward and a slow smile spread across her face, she had to concede that she had enjoyed the robbery far more than she had expected to. Her body quickly remembered both the adrenaline rush and the heightened sensation that came from relying on her wits to stay alive. Despite the considerable amount of time she had spent with Callie and Vanessa, the three of them had never felt more like sisters than when they were fleeing the scene of their crime. The proud and slightly reckless looks they had exchanged in the bank were all the proof she needed.

Right now, Callie and Vanessa were in the back seat of the car and engaged in a deep conversation. Vanessa had her arm around Callie who was struggling not to cry. "Ok, fine," she burst out. "But the next time, I'd probably just do the same thing again. I'm turning into a bad person!"

Although Callie looked slightly more relaxed as she heard Vanessa's response, Laura grimaced as she eyed them in the review mirror.

Although the two women were not as close as Frank and Joe, their skills complimented each other. Callie's clear insights into human nature and Vanessa's tendency toward action and no-nonsense attitude had done wonders for (she hoped!) the entire family. Their unshakable loyalty and willingness to take risks had been invaluable the last few days. Frank and Joe were lucky to have found two amazing, strong and smart women. If either woman got hurt tonight, she would have to answer to them. And quite frankly, she would prefer climbing in bed with a scorpion to facing two angry and devastated sons.

She was going to have enough problems explaining this to them as it was. They had spent their entire lives looking up to their father, admiring his successes and following in his footsteps. How would they judge their mother now, knowing that she was once a successful thief and had deceived them for almost 20 years? While Joe might get hot-headed, it was Frank's slow anger she was most concerned about, especially after the most recent changes in Callie.

The Callie of four days ago would never have knocked out a defenseless man with an antique lamp. That was Laura's fault and hers alone. _Was she becoming as cruel as Eric? Coldly disregarding the well-being of others for her own selfish gain? _

As she maneuvered past a semi, her thoughts turned to Fenton. Thomas's words repeated themselves in her head. She tried to convince herself that she was simply overreacting to a few stressful days, but deep down she knew that wasn't the whole truth. It was time to start being honest with herself.

_You're never allowed to use your remarkable talents and be yourself. I'm giving you the opportunity to break free, to be who you really are_."

The problem was that she was no longer sure who she was. Instead of facing who she was during these last 20 years, she had crafted an image of herself and stuck to it. That image was not entirely a false one, but she had given up more than she thought she would when she had made that deal. When she first heard her 15 and 16 year old sons discuss a mystery at dinner, she had to force herself to remain silent and display only marginal curiosity, even though she had suspected who the culprit was from the start, and was later proven right. Even harder was when Frank's interest in computers started to grow and expand, and as much as she wanted to share that part of his life with him, she couldn't.

The few times that she had helped Fenton (whose detective skills far outweighed her own), had been in an emergency and was a private matter between the two of them. Now that Thomas had shredded her external image, she would have to discover her true self. Like the Roman God Janus, her two selves were looking in opposite directions, and this could not continue. She would have to choose which way to look or forge a new face.

For most of her life, she had been Laura Hardy, largely out of fear that once she opened the door to Laura Basden, her old self would come crashing through it like an unwanted house guest. Over the last few days Laura Hardy had been alternately opening that door and morphing into Laura Basden before slamming the door shut again. There were times when she was not sure which Laura she was. Other times she was one or the other or a mixture of the two. But there was no time to mull that over now, there was Fenton to think of.

"_He's been completely catatonic since he's been here. He knows that when you bring the box to me, you'll have reverted back to your old self, and he'll have lost you forever. _

Fenton would never believe that she had anything to do with his kidnapping. But the problem now was that she trusted Fenton, but could not trust herself. Even if she disobeyed Thomas and rescued her husband, she wasn't sure everything would work out. After what she had done tonight and what she had allowed others to do, she didn't know if she was worthy to be the wife of such a fine man.

"_You came through for your husband before. He knows you're not going to let him down now. _"

With that thought, Laura Hardy opened her cell phone and dialed. No matter how this hurt her later or what she might do, there was one thing she could do to make sure this didn't escalate any further. A way to slam the door shut on Laura Basden forever. And she had to do it now before she changed her mind.

"Hello," she addressed the 911 dispatcher. "I'd like to report a kidnapping."

"Who was kidnapped?" asked the calm voice on the other end.

"Fenton, Frank and Joe Hardy," she answered. "This is Fenton's wife Laura Hardy. I've tracked the kidnappers to a warehouse in New York City." She rattled off the address.

"You what?! Stay where you are, ma'am" the female voice intoned. We're sending a squad car right away."

"Better make that four squad cars, and thank you!" Laura smiled as she hung up the phone.

"Why did you call the cops?" Vanessa demanded, turning her head from the window to make eye contact through the review mirror, "I don't want you to get arrested!"

"Because I don't want to have to leave a good friend unconscious on my kitchen floor again," Laura said firmly. "Here we are!" She turned around to look at Callie who was now looking a lot calmer than she was five minutes ago as she flashed Laura a congratulatory smile. Instead of arguing, Vanessa got out of the car and looked around the neighborhood.

"Two guards over there," she said. "But that shouldn't be a problem."

"Heyyyyyyy mannnn," she slurred, moving toward them. "Doo youu want to haave a gooood time?"

"Get lost lady," snapped the first guard.

"Whyy?" she said. "I juust waantt too haavve funnn."

"Don't get mad," the second one said condescendingly, "I get off in 15 minutes, then we'll have a good time!"

"But I am mad!" snapped Vanessa clearly. "You kidnapped my boyfriend and I want him back." With that, she slammed her elbow into his chin, causing his head to knock against the brick wall and he slumped to the ground. The first guard's eyes widened in surprise, but Vanessa quickly delivered an uppercut to the jaw, knocking him out cold.

"It will take a few minutes until the police get here," said Callie coming up next to her, "We'll wait until they show up."

"Would Frank and Joe wait? Besides, they could be used as hostages!" Without another word, Vanessa ran inside. Laura and Callie exchanged resigned looks and then ran after her.

The downstairs was a twisted and winding maze of hallways. They passed corridor after corridor until they had lost all sense of direction. They turned right, left and then right again, but kept feeling like continuously ended up back where they had started. They were so far underground that they could not hear any sounds from the city above.

"This is crazy," mumbled Vanessa. "At this rate, we'll be wandering around here when we're supposed to be meeting them tomorrow. Why haven't we – OH!"

She stared at the six men before her who looked even more surprised to see a stranger than she was. She could see that three of them were armed, but they seemed to have forgotten about their weapons. Laura and Callie rounded the corner behind Vanessa and stopped besides her. For a long moment, neither side moved.

Fighting was useless. Callie ran. Abandoning all caution, she spun around and blindly ran back toward the way she came.

"Frank! Joe! Fenton! Her yells echoed in the cavernous space as she continued, desperately searching for a way out. She wasn't sure why she was acting like this, but she knew that she had to find them and get help now.

"Callie!" Joe's voice rang out from far away. "Callie is that you?"

"That can't be Callie," Frank hollered. "She's at home in bed!"

"I am not, Frank Hardy!" yelled Callie. "Where are you?"

"Over here!" Joe yelled. "Locked in a room of some kind!" Callie continued to follow their voices as she drew closer to their prison.

Laura and Vanessa stood staring at the men before them and unconsciously moved closer together seeking reassurance. Just as Vanessa had had enough of this staring contest and figured that it was time to inquire as to why the job market was so bad that these men had to resort to shoddy underhand employment, Laura stood up straighter and gripped her arm.

"Thomas," she addressed the man who emerged from behind the six men. "Why so surprised to see me?"

"You ruined everything!" he spat. "Why couldn't you have just followed my instructions like you used to?"

"Because I'm not that woman anymore!" she shouted. The intensity of her rage surprised her. Their first meeting at a coffee shop, the books they both liked to read and the first job they pulled together flashed through her mind. She was surprised at how painful these emotions were. She thought that she had worked out her feelings of his betrayal but she was wrong.

Thomas grabbed a gun from the holster from one of the men and pointed it

At Vanessa.

Laura pulled out a smoke grenade from her shoulder bag and tossed it toward Thomas. She crashed into Vanessa and threw her to the ground as the entire corridor filled with smoke. She was shaking. Not from fear but from rage. This person had dared to come back into her life when she didn't want him there. And he had absolutely no right to kidnap anyone she cared about or point a gun at her son's girlfriend.

This had to end. With that thought, her mind was clear. She was furiously angry but she also had a job to do. She could be Laura Hardy and do it for her family. She could be Laura Basden and do it for herself. Either way, the final decision was the same even though she was no longer sure who was making the decision.

"Get them and get out of here," she barked in a mother-drill-sergeant-voice. "I'm going after Thomas." And she scrambled to her feet and plunged into the smoke, leaving Vanessa no choice but to obey. Offering a silent wish for Laura's wellbeing, Vanessa took off to find Callie, Fenton, Frank and Joe.

.

Callie stared depressingly at the locked door. The Hardys on the other side could speak to her but she had no way to get the padlocked door open. If she left for help, she wasn't sure she could find her way back. She jumped and turned as she heard footsteps running behind her, but it was only Vanessa. "The door's locked," she called out as Vanessa approached. "I can't get it open."

"Good thing I brought this!" Vanessa pulled out Joe's lock picking kit and started to work. But it had been almost a year since Joe had showed her how they worked and she was rusty. Even with Joe's patient guidance, five minutes later, the door was still shut.

"Aw darn, too slow!" she finally said. She stepped back and kicked the door which didn't budge.

"Hang on ," said Callie. "I think you got most of it – and that kick helped." She patiently manipulated the tools and thirty seconds later she pushed on the door, causing it to swing open.

"Laur-" Fenton burst out, and stopped abruptly.

"Where is she?" he demanded urgently.

"Back there," Vanessa answered. As fast as he could, Fenton ran down the hallway and out of sight.


	16. Chapter 16

Thank you to Agnes, LauraHardy, KCS, Red Hardy Whitetigers and Cherylann Rivers for your great reviews! I'm so glad you all liked the last chapter, and reviews keep me going. Internet problems kept me from posting this before…

Disclaimer: Don't own anyone you recognize.

* * *

"Vanessa!" Joe caught Vanessa in his arms and gave her a long hug which she eagerly returned. "How'd you get here? Did you really rob a bank? Where's mom? Dad's been acting odd… "

Callie shook her head. Captivity hadn't changed Joe much. He looked tired and the strain showed around his eyes, but he was still Joe. She put her arm around Frank and smiled at him as he held her. Right now, being alive and being held was enough.

"Odd…," said Frank. "Scared the crap out of us is more like it." Feeling Frank's arms tighten around her, she knew he was thinking the same thing she was. Glancing up, Callie noticed that his mouth was pressed together in a thin line. Something was clearly bugging him, and it wasn't her.

"Your mother went after Thomas, and it looks like your Dad's gone after both of them. She figured out you were here and Callie and I confirmed it. As for the bank, um, we- borrowed something but we plan to return it," Vanessa finished.

"Yeah, she figured it out," said Frank bitterly. "Trying to avoid a jail sentence, no doubt."

"WHAT?" Callie stepped away from Frank and looked at him, vaguely aware of the two stunned expressions behind her. "She's been worried sick about you. Locked in that small room this entire time because her ex-boyfriend carries a serious grudge."

"We were moved here a little while ago," said Joe from behind her. "Good thing, because Dad said the other place was soundproof and we never would have heard you."

"Whatever," said Callie. "Look, just give your mother a chance.."

"Give her a chance," Frank repeated. "Why should I give her a chance when the first thing she does when this happens is robs a bank instead of calling the police?" The entire time Fenton had spoken earlier, he had remained silent, but now all of his frustration was spilling out at his nearest target.

"I watched my father get beaten up and I could do absolutely nothing about it. I failed and was helpless. And then for the next couple of days, he acts like a complete stranger. It was like he had gone away and there was an empty shell where he used to be. Joe was ready to put his fist through the wall, and I seriously considered doing the same. We would have been out of there before if _someone _had called the police instead of acting like a James Bond wannabe. So why didn't you?"

"Because then you would have been dead," Callie snapped. "Not because we thought Joe's life or your father's was worthless. Look, every time I've ever been kidnapped, I trusted that it was _you _who would find me and make things right. _You and Joe. _Not the police. This time I trusted your mother. Not because of what she's done but because of who she is."

"So you're trying to ignore everything she's done?" Frank asked. "Who knows what stuff she's been involved in? And even if she wasn't involved in it, she knew about it."

"She made a –"

"Don't tell me she made a mistake!"

"She made a choice to stop being who she was. And you were a big part of that! And when her old life came back, she faced who she was instead of running away from it. What more could you ask for?

"The truth!" said Frank. "All my life I've been raised to be a detective, to catch criminals and help people. I've always looked up to both of my parents, knowing that they've always done the right thing. But now I find out that they're hypocrites who lied to me my entire life."

And this was the issue. Frank valued honesty and loyalty above all else. Even thinking that his parents could lie to him about something this important was inconceivable. That they actually did was betrayal.

"You know your mother loves you," said Callie laying her hand on his arm and taking it as a good sign that he didn't shake it off. "I don't know why they didn't tell you, but you need to ask her before making a judgment."

"That doesn't excuse her actions," Frank countered.

"I knocked Sam Radley out with a lamp and left him on your kitchen floor. If he presses charges, I couldn't blame him. Are you going to judge me now?"

"Excuse me?"

"We had come back from the bank. We got the call from Thomas and it was pretty obvious that your death warrant had been signed. I couldn't think of anything but getting here in time. And then Sam came over. He had figured out that your Dad wasn't where he was supposed to be and stopped by to make sure everything was all right. And when he saw the safe deposit box on the kitchen table, he tried to convince her to go to Collig. She agreed, but I hit him on the head because I thought that would take too much time and you'd be dead."

"She was going to turn herself in?" asked Frank slowly.

"Yes," said Callie. "And I stopped her."

Callie had knocked out one of their friends because she was worried about _him_. Even though that wasn't the best decision, if the situation were reversed, he would have done the same thing.

"Callie, you shouldn't even be involved in this," he said. "I'm sorry."

"Frank," she sighed. "I feel terrible about Sam. But I don't know if I would have done anything differently. So, Laura will take responsibility for her actions, and I will take responsibility for mine."

Frank looked at Callie with respect in his eyes. This was a more self-confident woman than the one he had said goodbye to before he had headed off to the computer lab. And Callie and Vanessa had always called his mother "Mrs. Hardy". Sometime in the past few days, she had become Laura.

"I'll listen," he said finally. "I can't promise anything else."

"Fair enough," said Callie. That was the best she was going to get.

"Glad we got that straightened out," whispered Joe so only Vanessa could hear. "I was afraid we'd have World War Three when this was over."

"I don't think Frank's totally convinced," she whispered back. "But now it will be a civil war instead of World War Three. What about you?"

"I know you will always do the right thing," he whispered and kissed her on the cheek. "And I have a feeling there's more to Mom than we know."

"Touching moment," said a voice from the other end of the hallway. "However, you four are needed elsewhere, if you wouldn't mind coming with us.

Looking toward the direction of the voice, Frank winced and caught Joe's eye. He recognized the man who spoke as one of the two who had restrained him that first night, and the shadows behind him promised even more people. Although the sight of him filled Frank with anger, he didn't think he could do much better in a fight this time around, especially with Callie and Vanessa to protect. Judging from Joe's expression and the way he was eyeing Vanessa, Joe had reached the same conclusion.

"In there," he said gesturing toward the empty room they had just vacated.

"We'll try and hold them off to give you some room to run."

Before he could signal Joe, Vanessa moved past him.

She let the first person go by her and caught the arm of the second who had swung his fist toward her head. She twisted it and sent him flying past her into the first person and both of them tumbled to the ground.

Blocking a flying kick, she stepped forward and brought her knee up into the third attacker's groin. Hard. He didn't have time to say anything before he dropped, clutching a very tender spot.

Frank had heard that Aikido placed emphasis on motion and turning people's negative energy away from you, but had never seen it done.

Instead of lashing out at her attackers, Vanessa met them and turned their attacks away from her.

Her precise movements were not angry but perfectly controlled. Two or three people at once approached her and instead of panicking, she twisted aside and sent them toward the nearest hard surface. When one person ran at her to try to knock her down, she looked at him as he tried in vain and then knocked _him _down.

Frank stepped in front of an attacker who was stupid enough to target Callie while he was there. He put him down with a karate chop and looked at Vanessa out of the corner of his eye as he turned to deliver a kick to the next person who was trying to sneak up on him, and then followed up with a punch to the jaw.

Vanessa's movements were calm. Despite all she had gone through in the last few days, her motions were not filled with rage or anger. Instead, she met the attacks and turned them away from her.

Joe knew Vanessa was capable of this, but knowing and seeing were two different things. He was willing to bet that she could give Frank a run for his money, and that was saying something.

Seeing a flash of metal on the other side of the hallway, Joe slammed in to the guy before he could draw his gun completely. As both of them crashed against the wall, he managed to get an elbow in the guy's ribs and gasped as a punch grazed his jaw. His own fist caught the guy's cheekbone with a thud. He got to his feet in time to see Frank bow formally to Vanessa who gracefully returned it.

This was a side of Vanessa Frank had never seen before. And he was discovering things about his mother he had never realized. Instead of waiting to hear the whole story from her, he had reacted angrily to changes without getting her side of the story. Aikido doesn't react to an attack directly but uses the energy of the attacker to redirect it. Having seen the perfect harmony in her movements, Frank wondered if he could find that harmony in his own life again. He owed it to himself and his family to try.

"Mom and Dad are going to need help," said Joe "Let's go!" The man who was lying on the floor beneath him lifted his head.

"You're too late," he rasped. "Standing around here talking. He's got a room filled with gas for emergencies. You'll never get there in time."

Frank was the first one down the hallway.

* * *

Note to all the martial arts people out there: I do not practice Aikido, but know quite a few people who do. Comments and feedback and criticisms about that section are welcome.


	17. Chapter 17

Yay! This chapter is finally done. Sorry for the LONG wait for this update, but this is a long chapter to make up for it. It took me some time to figure out what to do and where I wanted to go with this. A big thanks to Laura Hardy for giving me ideas and suggestions. Hope you like what I did with this!

Shraddha: Nancy Drew won't be in this story. I mentioned her name in chapter one for contrast and said in the note to chapter two she wouldn't be in it. So sorry, and hope you liked the story anyway. I am thinking about a story with Nancy in it later, but no idea when it will be written.

Agnes: I've actually seen Aikido done, even though I've never done it.

LH: I wanted to make a super Vanessa. We have super Franks all the time, so I thought a super Vanessa would be nice  My original draft said explicitly that Vanessa was better than Frank, but I thought that would be too much.

Fandemonium, KCS, Cherylann and Whitetigers, thanks for your great reviews. Story is almost done! Updates should be quicker, as parts of other chapters are already written.

Disclaimer: Hardy Boys Characters belong to someone else.

* * *

Fenton knew where he was going. An inner sixth sense guided him through the corridors – two left turns, two right turns and then a left again. He didn't see anyone as he ran, and for that he was grateful. His breath came out in gasps and he doubted that he could put up a significant fight at this point. His ribs were still sore from the beating and he couldn't swear that he didn't have a concussion. But his wife needed him.

He wasn't sure what he feared if he didn't reach Laura. The last time Thomas had tried to kill her, she had tried to reason with him. Would she do that again and lose her life? Or would she kill him out of anger? If she did that, Fenton knew she would never been able to forgive herself.

The sheer shock that had rendered him catatonic for a while had passed. He _had _briefly feared that Laura would join Thomas again. Laura had given up so much over the years. Personality wise, she was the same person who had saved his life years ago. She had used her great qualities: kindness, quick-thinking, and keen intelligence, to be a good mother and a teacher. Her sons and a wide circle of friends were a living testament to her calm competence and good heart.

Fenton the husband and father had never been foolish enough to think that the adventures of motherhood and a steady job were a substitute for the life she had left before. For over 20 years, she had never complained. But every so often, he had caught a wistful look in her eyes and knew that she was thinking about the life that she had left behind and what could have been. In those moments, all he could do was quietly support her and be a constant reminder that what she had gained was much more than what she had lost.

As Frank and Joe had taken on more and more challenging cases, Laura had been faced with constant reminders of her past life. Despite her good heart and firm commitment to leaving the world she had inhabited before, there was still a consistent and underlying struggle. Consciously she had erected mental walls against her past life, but unconsciously, that life was still a part of her being. She automatically sought the exits and entrances of every museum that they had visited and could always pinpoint the cameras in any building without looking at them. Whenever Fenton had tried to get past her conscious resistance during their early years of marriage, she had always evaded those attempts or pretended that he had never tried.

He hadn't referred directly to her past in years, but within the last two or three years, he had noticed more and more of those moments where her actions reflected her uncommon knowledge. There had also been an increasing frequency of times when she was staring off into space. The last time had been one night when their alarm system malfunctioned and went off by accident during a quiet dinner. Laura had calmly gotten up from the kitchen table, unscrewed the cover and repaired the alarm system while Fenton had quickly telephoned the security company to assure them that everyone was under control. Laura had then picked up the dinner table conversation from where they had left off, seemingly unaware of what she had done. Fenton had known that a day would come when she would no longer be able to hide from her past, but he had never thought it would happen like _this. _

Laura had been toostudious in keeping herself separate from her past life. She _never _inquired about any of his cases and only assisted him after he had run into a blind end and needed her help figuring out how a crime might have been committed. But in those times, she refrained from asking about the names of any of his suspects or exactly what they were guilty of, what their lives had been like or, when the case was over, how he had caught them. This had some advantages and kept her occupied with the present instead of the past. But it also left her vulnerable and practically defenseless to anything Thomas might now say, especially if she faced him alone.

This amazing woman had invested so much into being a good person and was too devoted to her family of the present to revert to dreams of the past. Fenton knew that, but he didn't know if Laura did. And he wasn't sure if he could convince her of that right now; if he could get her to see herself as he saw her: a smart and capable woman who was a great person and the best wife and mother anyone could ask for.

Laura was angry. Fenton had been a private investigator for too long to doubt what any good person was capable of when they were angry. He hoped with all his hear that she would not do anything she would later regret. If she killed him, she would take it as evidence that she was returning to her old ways and would blame herself for a long time. If she killed him, she would undo everything the two of them had worked together to build.

He sighed in relief as he rounded another corner and saw her familiar blonde hair in front of him. Spinning around, she gestured for him to _be quiet _and then regarded him with a mixture of apprehension and concern. He saw her mouth tighten as she looked at his tired eyes and assorted injuries. He also noticed the dangerous glint in her eye and could feel the anger coming off her in waves.

"I'm following him. He's up there somewhere," she whispered into his ear. "He did that to you?!" She was gingerly checking out his injuries and critically examining every part of him she could see. "He doesn't know you're free," she added as she satisfied herself that he would survive. "I'll go after him."

"Uh-uh" Fenton hissed fiercely. "This time, we do it together."

In the next glance, a thousand emotions and thoughts were exchanged. There was Fenton's silent admonition and warning to her, backed up by years of experience as a professional private investigator and personal experience as her husband. There was Laura's gratitude to him for giving her the opportunity to confront her enemy, even though he wanted nothing less than to do it by himself. There was his enduring faith in her to do the right thing even though she was furiously angry, and her desire to live up to the hopes of the man who had given her a second chance at life. There were memories of Frank and Joe, the life as a family they had all shared, the constant reminder of why they were here and what they were fighting for. All this, and much more.

The two partners determinedly and silently moved forward together.

After several embarrassing incidents as a young man, Fenton had learned to trust his instincts. When he strongly felt that they were being watched as they ventured down the corridor, he slowed their pace and subtly made sure that Laura was slightly behind him.

He was still taken by surprise when doors on both sides opened and he found himself faced with a silver knife. Laura fared slightly better. She ducked as a fist came swinging over her head and kicked the shin of her attacker. She blindly punched forward and was rewarded by an oof as she hit his midsection, but found herself being pushed back against the opposite wall by a hand on her throat. Looking behind the cold eyes of the man who was holding her, she saw Fenton standing very still with Thomas holding a knife to his neck.

"We're going to talk," Thomas said threateningly. "You will come along quietly and listen, or I will kill your husband here and now." Laura nodded as much as she could and the henchman who was holding her throat let it go and shoved her forward. Another shove encouraged her to get moving and she was aware of Thomas propelling Fenton in the same direction.

They entered a large room that was empty except for two side-by-side chairs in the center, about five feet apart. Fenton and Laura were forced to sit in them and instructed to only look ahead. Laura's guard walked behind Fenton's chair and put his heavy hands on Fenton's shoulders to prevent him from moving while Thomas approached her with the knife in his hand.

"I would have gotten you out later," he said softly. "You never gave me a chance. Instead you tried to kill me and went with him." He jerked his thumb at Fenton.

"Actually, you tried to kill me," Laura retorted . "And then you go through all this trouble to hurt my family instead of picking up the phone and wishing me the best."

"I love you Laura," he said, seeming not to notice the murderous glare she was giving him. "I'm saving you from your boring life as a housewife and giving you the opportunity to be who you are. In fact, I'm doing this all for you!"

Fenton couldn't repress a snort and Laura looked at him in disbelief. "For me?" she said sarcastically. "Let's see, you beat up my husband, plan to kill my sons, try to shoot my son's girlfriend, and I'm supposed to believe you have my happiness in mind."

"Of course!" he responded. "This is who you really are, this is who you were always meant to be. You don't need all these other people, especially not your husband…" As Thomas continued to rave, Laura saw her chance.

"Do you remember when we first met?" she asked. "I was sitting in a coffee shop reading _The Fountainhead _and you were reading _Atlas Shrugged_?" The painful memory threatened to overwhelm her and she forced herself to think of Frank's cool logic instead.

"You were drinking coffee black with two sugars," Thomas remembered. "And then we argued about if the state of the world mirrored the novels…"

"Look," Laura said rising from her chair. "If you really care about me, let him go." She gestured to Fenton. "Let both of us go."

"Will you come with me if I do?" Thomas inquired.

"No," she said calmly. "You know that I'd be lying if I said yes."

"How would you like it if everyone woke up tomorrow morning and read about you in the papers? The entire world will know that Laura Hardy is really Laura Basden and they'll read about every single job you've ever pulled, even ones that dear husband here doesn't know about."

"Don't care about that, anymore," she said, but couldn't keep the uncertainty out of her voice. "We'll deal with it together."

"Like we have everything else," Fenton interjected, and was rewarded by a slap in the face.

"We?" said Thomas noticing Laura's flinch. "There will be no we."

"What do you mean?" Laura asked worriedly.

"In addition to the history of Laura Basden, readers will also read about her master plan. The plan to seduce the famous private investigator Fenton Hardy. Until one day when he found out about her past and her evil schemes. And then she killed him." He brandished the knife at Laura who took a step back and hit the chair.

"Airtight case. Documents will be found in your house and the murder weapon will be by his side with your fingerprints on it." He grabbed her hand and pressed her fingers firmly around the hilt of the knife and gripped her hand and her arm tightly. "You can say you are innocent, but who will believe you? Your sons? The bumbling Chief Collig? Sam Radley?"

Laura's heart sank. Would they believe her? She had never explained her history before, had never even tried. Would that ultimately hurt her more than she had imagined could be possible?

"Frank and Joe would believe her," Fenton broke in. "Especially now that they know you are alive, and I told them who you are. And they'd never rest until they cleared her name."

"Really?" Thomas interjected. "I think they'd just believe that she became so furiously angry at what her life had become, how worthless it was, that she had to get away from it all and kill the man who was responsible for putting her in a cage!"

"Never," Laura and Fenton said together.

"Eventually they'd figure it out," said Fenton. "We both taught them well. And besides, what are they supposed to think, that the past three days were a dream?"

"Doesn't matter, they won't be alive long enough," Thomas countered, looking at him, but keeping his hand over Laura's. "I spent a long time in a hospital thinking only of her. Tis only fair that she spends years in prison with no visitors, thinking only for me after her sons die in a tragic accident."

He forced Laura over to Fenton, never letting go of her arm and keeping his hand over hers on the knife. As Fenton attempted to struggle, the guard behind him simply put his entire arm around his neck and used his superior strength to force Fenton to remain seated.

"Kill him," Thomas commanded. "If you don't, then I will. If I kill him, you will watch as he slowly dies."

Laura gritted her teeth and rounded on Thomas. "You are so dumb," she spat. "No wonder your father and the rest of us barely tolerated you."

"That's it," Thomas growled. "Give me your gun," he said to the guard who was now forcibly restraining Fenton with two hands. "I –"

"Don't you know _anything _about forensics?" Laura demanded. "If I kill him here, you'll have to move the body and it'll be a bloody mess. Any competent CSI tech will know I didn't kill him at the location and they'll start looking for it. Unless you want the cops crawling all over here, we need to move somewhere else."

As much as a suspicious Thomas wanted to argue with her, he couldn't dispute her logic and took the knife back. "Fine," he said curtly. "We're leaving. You can kill him outside or back in Bayport. Doesn't matter."

Fenton's guard released him and he slowly stood up from the chair and stepped to the side. As his guard started to draw his gun, Fenton rammed an elbow into his solar plexus as Laura half turned and grappled with Thomas, hitting, kicking and clawing everything she could reach to get the knife back. She heard a shot behind her, but she couldn't divert her attention from the man in front of her.

Very slowly, with strength and focus that came from anger and desperation, she forced Thomas's knife hand away from his body and twisted it, trying to get him to drop it. She blocked out the pain from blows that Thomas was giving her and sweat poured down her forehead as she tried to blink it out of her eyes. She finally got him to drop the knife and then kicked him away with one massive kick and bent down to pick it up and straightened up again.

Thomas started to advance toward her, but stopped, seemingly frozen by the anger flashing in her eyes and the knife that was pointed steadily at his heart. But she was hurt as well, and much of the rage she was directing at him was also directed at herself. How could she have been so stupid? Why had she spent any part of her life at all with this jerk? He had done so much to hurt both her and those she cared about, and if she had never bothered to ask him if he had preferred the character of John Gault or Howard Roark, none of this would have happened.

_But she never would have met Fenton either…_

"I should kill you," she said looking at him directly in the eye. "But you're not worth going to jail over." She lowered the knife half way and gestured to the door. "Get out," she said. "There's a jail cell where you're going to be staying for a _LONG _time."

"You don't want to do that," he said. "There will be a long, drawn out, public trial. I go down, I take you with me."

"I meant what I said before. I don't care if the whole world knows. It's about time my sons knew the truth anyway."

Thomas started toward the door. Moving with a speed Laura would not believed possible, he lunged toward her and grabbed the knife and pointed it directly at her, all in the space of a second. As she stared into his eyes, she knew that she was going to die. Nothing she could say would convince him otherwise, and she refused to give him any satisfaction by trying. Her silence was her greatest weapon, a refusal to play his game.

Laura stood her ground as he raised the knife. A second shot fired and he fell sideways. As he fell, his head hit the wall, depressing a lever and the door slammed shut. Laura turned and saw Fenton aiming the guard's gun steadily at where Thomas had just been standing. He was uninjured as the bullet from the shot she had heard before was in the wall behind him, and the guard was out cold on the floor.

Fenton had shot Thomas in the head. He had died instantly.

Turning away from her ex-boyfriend's body, Laura moved toward Fenton as he moved toward her and they embraced for a long moment.

"I couldn't kill him," she said with her head buried in his chest. "I wanted to…"

"He'll never bother us again," said Fenton firmly. They both heard a hiss, and turned toward the door.

"He must have triggered something when his head hit the wall," Fenton said running his hands over the locked and practically invisible door as Laura checked the walls. "No opening here."

"None here either," she said. "The door opens from the other side. And it's carbon monoxide. We'll have a couple minutes before we pass out and then…" her voice trailed off.

"How did you know that I never…you know," she asked after a few seconds.

"I worried about that for a while," he answered honestly. He owed her the truth after all. " But I've known you for 20 years. You are not who you were before."

She laughed bitterly. "Pulling off that robbery earlier tonight was the most fun I've had in years," she admitted. "I called the police as soon as we got here to make sure I wouldn't change my mind. And involving Callie and Vanessa was awful and I feel –"

"Which you never would have done if you had a choice," Fenton interjected before she could blame herself even more. "And I bet they didn't give you much of a choice, and you didn't force them to do anything. That was what really made me realize that you were working against him. You never would have involved them if you planned to join Thomas at all. He knew it too. It was at that point that he tried too hard to convince Frank and Joe to join him."

"Which they refused to," she smiled.

"And he got more unhinged and desperate," Fenton finished. "And I just kept remembering how you came through for me before and knew you would somehow find a way again. You're nothing like him. I never would have fallen in love with you if you were."

Fenton had trusted her. Despite whatever doubts he had, he had still trusted her. "I'm sorry I never reached this point before," she said regretfully. "If I had been ready to face who I was before, admit it to Frank and Joe, and joined you in your practice, what we could have done…"

"It took some time, that's all," Fenton answered. "I was happy to wait. And now you _know _you are better than him; you didn't kill him."

At this point, both of them had huge headaches and were getting dizzy. They slid down with their backs against the wall and put their arms around each other.

"I love you, Fenton," Laura said sleepily.

"I love you too, Laura," he answered. "We raised good sons, didn't we?"

"The best," she answered. "And they'll never have to deal with him in their lives."

With their arms around each other and thinking of their children, Fenton and Laura drifted off into another world, oblivious to the footsteps that were growing closer to them every minute.

To Joe, it had seemed like forever since Frank had started working on the door. Although he was the faster runner of the two, he could not keep up with Frank as he had barged through corridor after corridor and checked all the side rooms for their parents with lightning speed. They had left Callie and Vanessa far behind. But this was the door. It had to be. Besides having no standard lock on it, it was controlled by a panel of complicated buttons and wiring that made no sense to Joe. He could only wait as Frank desperately tried different combinations to get the door open. But it had been at least a couple minutes now, and Joe hated waiting.

He took a deep breath and started counting his heartbeats. When he had complained about waiting as a little kid, that's what his mother told him to do. _Empty your mind, she had said. Just concentrate on breathing. _And despite his anxiety, he was calmer, although he should probably resign from being a detective, never having noticed before that his mother was not all that she had seemed.

Hearing Frank curse, Joe walked over and put a calming hand on his arm. "You can do it," he said softly. "Just one thing at a time." Frank's eyes filled with renewed determination and he worked even faster as he crossed the red wire with the green wire then the blue wire with the orange wire then tore them all apart to try yet a different combination.

And finally the door opened. Both Frank and Joe immediately felt lightheaded and were forced to back away from the door to get some fresh air. But then they took a deep breath and plunged in. Frank picked his mother up and carried her outside the small room. Joe half carried half dragged his father and neither of them stopped until they were well away from the door.

"Carbon monoxide," Frank gasped. He immediately started CPR on Laura and Joe quickly followed suit with Fenton.

_I'm sorry Mom_ Frank thought while he was counting. _How could I have ever doubted that you loved all of us… _13,14,15 _ that you're a good person. _4,5,6_… I need to talk to you, to apologize _23, 24, 25_… Please don't let it be too late…don't let it…_

Laura started coughing and sputtering as Frank sighed in relief. She then tried to sit up, but was too weak. "Lie still a moment," he murmured. "You'll be ok." Glancing up, he saw that his father's eyes were fluttering and saw his chest rise up and down. Thankful that Fenton was breathing, he glanced down at Laura.

"Frank," she mumbled looking hazily up at him. "So glad… so glad you came."

As the eyes of mother and son met, they were both filled with apology and remorse. Even though Frank was living proof of his mother's goodness, he had doubted her. And she was sorry that he ever had cause to doubt it, that she had never explained the situation to him before. As the shared feeling passed between both of them, there was also a commitment to reconcile, to try, to understand and to love without judgment.

When Laura was finally able to sit up, they shared a long hug and then looked to Joe and Fenton who had silently observed, grateful that two people they loved would be able to work out their own issues. Both Frank and Joe noticed the renewed sparkle in their father's eye and were relieved that although Fenton was still weak, he was finally back to his normal self.

They had always known that their parents loved each other, but had never seen the depths of it until now. For now looking at their parents was like looking at two halves of the same whole, two pieces of a puzzle that fit perfectly together. Fenton and Laura Hardy were just as much of a team in their own way as Frank and Joe were in theirs.

Joe hauled Laura to her feet and Frank extended a hand to Fenton. The foursome made their way back through the corridors and finally met Callie and Vanessa before making their way outside. Although they wanted nothing more than to spend time together, they all knew that the sooner they got the police formalities out of the way, the sooner they could have a long overdue talk.

"The feds," Fenton remarked, seeing black SUVs scattered throughout the swarm of police cars. "That will make everything so much easier to explain."

Callie blanched as she saw another figure exiting a black sedan.

"And Sam Radley."

* * *

Note: _Atlas Shrugged_ and _The Fountainhead_ were published in the 1940s and 50s. So they would have been around during the time Laura and Thomas met.


	18. Chapter 18

The muse heard you! I'm trying to fit Joe in here a little more, but I feel like I'm just replacing "Frank" with "Joe". Next chapter, I promise.

Thank you ALL for your amazing reviews for the last chapter. Story is almost done!

Disclaimer: As stated before. I assume you're tired of reading it by now.

* * *

Holding Vanessa's hand, Joe looked around at the assorted police cars and government vehicles before them. He usually arrived on the scene before the cops showed up or after they were already there. He could also count on one hand the number of times that he had been practically ignored at the crime scene.

The Hardys had been shoved to the side as police officers and federal agents in nondescript suits sealed off the entire street and entered the building. A uniformed officer had told them to wait patiently because someone was on their way to talk to them. That was at least ten minutes ago. Sam Radley was engaged in a deep discussion with a NYPD Detective and hadn't even looked at them since he had first gotten out of his car. Not even Fenton's past on the police force was enough to get any information.

_If it weren't for mom, they'd never even know about this in the first place, _thought Joe grumpily. _They could at least show her some respect. _To people who didn't know her well, Laura Hardy looked as calm as ever. A tightness around her eyes betrayed her nervousness, but she was holding up better than Joe would have expected. She had been through so much already; had made so many hard choices. It would be so not fair if she got judged or criticized for what she did 20 years ago or two days ago. If any court sentenced her to prison, Joe would start thinking of ways to break her out. Maybe they could all live on the run in Hawaii…

As a new SUV screeched to a halt on the other side of the yellow crime scene tape, the six of them turned to look at it. The man who emerged from the driver's side had slightly tousled brown hair and looked like every other federal official except he radiated a sense of power and authority. At the sight of him, Fenton relaxed and the tightness disappeared from Laura's eyes. After conversing briefly with a colleague, the newcomer walked toward the Hardy's with his eyes fixed on Laura.

"Hello Jeff," Laura shook his hand. "Although there's no one else I'd rather see right now, I was hoping I would never see you again."

"Likewise, Laura," he answered with a smile. "When Sam Radley called me a half an hour ago, my first thought was that someone was playing a joke." He grew serious. "He mentioned something about a kidnapping and the Camarazzi syndicate, but no specifics. Do you want to fill me in?"

"Thomas survived going off the pier, but had a nasty case of amnesia," Fenton answered as Laura hesitated. "He just recently regained enough of his memory to come after us…"

"And he did that, how?"

"By kidnapping Fenton, Frank and Joe," answered Laura. "He hoped that would be enough to get me to rejoin him. You'll find his body down there. Fenton shot him."

"In self-defense," she added quickly, noticing Jeff's raised eyebrow. "Forensics will back it up, but the room is a carbon monoxide trap, so be careful." Her shoulder was starting to ache from the fight and she suddenly wanted to crawl into bed and pull the covers over her head.

"Doesn't explain how you managed to find him," Jeff said perceptively. Joe decided that Jeff reminded him too much of his father, always asking the right question that you did not want to answer.

"Used an old contact to track him here," Laura answered. "There was no time to call you, it was too late."

"Uh-huh," Jeff said. "No name I suppose?"

Laura firmly shook her head.

"No one you need to bother with," she said. "He's lost too much to return to his old ways."

"And you have gained too much to return to yours," Jeff said, his eyes moving to Frank and Joe.

"I'm Jeff," he said shaking their hands. "I knew both of your parents years ago. It's been a great pleasure seeing you follow in your father's footsteps."

"Thanks," said Joe. "Sorry to sound rude, but who are you?"

Jeff laughed. "I work for the FBI's taskforce on white collar crime. Years ago, I was part of the team that investigated the Camarazzi syndicate. Your mother kept us busy until she turned herself in."

"Once I did that, Jeff facilitated my pardon," Laura broke in. "He and Fenton had to fight to get it approved, but they did."

"Pardon!" Frank inquired as his mind reeled and his heart skipped a beat. "Then why all the secrecy?" His harsh tone of voice surprised him. Callie and Vanessa managed to look both worried and angry and Joe's eyes widened in surprise. To all present, it was obvious that Frank was really asking why he had not been told before.

"The official story is that Laura Basden's whereabouts are unknown. She is still alive and on the run," Fenton answered, making contact with each of them. "Warrants for her are still in the system. So, the police definitely would have arrested her."

"We'd noticed increasing activity around this area, but never dreamed of Camarazzi," Jeff interjected, seeing that this needed to be a private conversation. "I need to see what evidence is down there to see if arrests need to be made this morning. I cleared you with the other people around here. You are all free to go, and we'll collect any statements we need from you later."

"Jeff-," Laura started, and then stopped at the look he gave her. "Thank you," she said instead.

"Consider it even," he said shaking her hand and then moved on to shake Fenton's. "We still owe you for what you did the last time we met."

"Bayport Savings Bank was robbed earlier," he commented seemingly as an afterthought as he shook Callie's hand. "Hopefully the stuff will turn up before too long," he added, shaking Vanessa's hand. "I'd hate to have to get involved in that. I have much more important things to take care of."

As Jeff walked away, Vanessa kept a polite expression on her face. But she silently vowed to give up any further thoughts of a life of crime. Between Jeff and Joe, she'd never get away with it.

"Sam's coming," Joe interjected, seeing Frank turn toward their mom and directing his attention toward Callie instead. He caught Vanessa's eye and tried to pass strength and reassurance to her.

Frank leaned closer to Callie and gave her a hug. "I won't ever forget that you did it for me," he said softly. "And I'll always love and support you, no matter what."

"Along with Chief Collig," Fenton added, noticing the other figure. "How did he get here so fast?"

"When Laura's call came in and your name was mentioned, NYPD called him," Sam answered, his eyes filled with a silent apology as Collig approached. "We wanted to make sure you were all right."

"We're alive and in one piece," answered Fenton, knowing that they would understand that it was enough. "Thanks to you both for coming."

"Of course," said Collig. "I know you've been cleared to go, but would you mind explaining what's going on?"

"Have you heard of the Camarazzi syndicate?" Laura asked before Fenton could say anything. If she really meant what she said earlier about not caring who knew about her past, this was a good time as any to start.

"The case that secured Fenton's rising reputation when he caught them. The only remaining member of the syndicate at large is Laura Basden and she's been-"

"No," he said firmly.

"Yes," she answered. "That's who I was before I met Fenton."

"You- you." None of them had ever seen Collig speechless before.

"Thomas came back," Laura answered, coming to his aid. "And kidnapped them," she gestured toward her family members "to get me to join him".

"But you never would have joined him," said Collig dismissing that possibility entirely.

"Of course not," said Joe quickly. "He was absolutely crazy."

"So if you're Laura Basden," Collig resumed. "How come the federal agent who was just here didn't arrest you earlier?"

"Pardon," Laura answered. "But it was kept secret because it would have been dangerous for me if other syndicate members knew I was alive," she clarified. "I knew too much about Camrazzi operations for one thing."

A thought came to Collig and he looked at her inquisitively. When she nodded, he glanced at Fenton who confirmed the unspoken exchange with a glance.

"Wow," said Collig appreciatively. "I'm impressed. Not many people could have fooled me."

"I'm glad you are all ok, but you are going to the hospital to get checked out," Collig said returning to his normal gruff demeanor. "All of you, with the exception of Miss Shaw and Miss Bender. I'm getting an ambulance," he declared as four mouths opened to argue. "No excuses."

"Oh, I'll make sure you all go," Vanessa said with a sly smile on her face. "One way or another." The four mouths closed again.

"Oh -," said Sam, as Chief Collig started to walk away. "Before you go, there's one other thing."

_Here it comes, _Callie thought. _He's going to press assault charges against me. I wonder if Frank will visit me in prison. Do I rate being held with a segregated population because I'm his girlfriend?_

"I got this from an ex-con friend of mine," said Sam. He pulled the safe-deposit box that they had left on the kitchen table in Bayport out of a backpack. The six people froze, their eyes transfixed by the small box.

"No questions asked," he said handing it to Collig. "It won't happen again." His eyes twinkled as they met Laura's. Vanessa and Callie exhaled audible sighs of relief, which Chief Collig seemed not to notice.

"You can't do that!" he said. "I'll have to charge you as an accessory."

"You can send me to jail," said Sam. "But I'm not telling you who. It's a friend of mine who was caught in a bad situation. As you can see, the box was never opened and everything is intact."

Collig frowned. It was clear he didn't like the situation but didn't want to put Sam in jail. And there was an unusual amount of tension emanating from the group that he didn't want to know the source of…

"Everything's there?" he demanded finally.

"You can see that it was never opened," Sam answered. "Everything is there."

"No questions asked," Collig finally said. "But if someone does rob the bank again, I'll know where to look."

After talking privately with Jeff and ensuring that an ambulance would soon be arriving, Chief Collig left. He had more important criminals to catch than a bank robber who didn't do anything with the loot and probably would not be robbing anything again. The bank wouldn't care too much about the identity of the culprit as long as the materials were returned.

"Sam," both Fenton and Callie had spoken at the same time, and then looked at each other. As Fenton gestured that Callie should go first, she continued:

"I'm so sorry that I hit you. I know there's no way I can make up for it, but I'll do your dishes, iron your clothes, file your papers, anything! I did it for Frank, but that's no excuse. None!"

"It's ok," Sam said. "You have a good arm." Seeing Callie's disbelieving look, he continued "You do! And you've been put into a very difficult situation and you made the best of it. If I had a daughter, I couldn't be more proud of her."

"I know you, Laura," he added turning to her. "I know how much your family means to you and that you would never do anything to hurt them. I'm sorry I went off at you earlier."

"Forgiven, Sam," Laura said. "We should have told you a long time ago. And what you said really made me realize what I was turning in to. It was that more than anything that made me call the police and end this."

"After the way I reacted, I understand why you didn't tell me earlier. I wish I could have been ready to hear it before."

"There was another reason," Fenton admitted. "When I first spoke to the police about her, I lied to them. I told her she was never involved with the crimes she actually had committed. Telling the truth about her would have meant you finding out that your partner lied to the police. I did put it right, but I never had the courage to tell you. I was protecting myself just as much as I was protecting her…"

"You?" said blinking his eyes in surprise. "I never would have thought-" He had taken Fenton Hardy under his wing soon after Fenton had arrived in Bayport. He had started training Fenton, but had ended up learning just as much if not more from Fenton than he had taught. In all the years they had known each other, Fenton had never considered bending rules or working outside the law. Or so he had thought.

"Me neither," Fenton said. "If you want to stop working with me, I'll understand."

"Stop working with you?" Sam demanded. "Because of a mistake you made over 20 years ago and then immediately put right? I can't promise everything will be like before, but I'm willing to try."

"Sorry," said Frank after a brief pause. "Let's see if I get can get this straight. Dad lied to the police saying that mom was never involved with one of the most widespread syndicates on the East coast, but mom ends up with a pardon approved by the future head of an FBI task force?"

Fenton and Laura laughed. "Well," said Laura. "Your father was sitting outside of the Bayport Court house…"


	19. Chapter 19

Disclaimer: Ahem… I would like to announce that I have secured the rights to the character of Laura Hardy…. Oh wait, I haven't. Haven't got the rights to other beloved characters either. What I did manage to do was modify this chapter for posting. Most of it was written while I was trying to tweak chapter 17, so the next update will be a little while. Enjoy!

* * *

Fenton threw down the newspaper and took a bite of his bagel. Sitting at a table at a café across the street from the Bayport courthouse on a sunny morning was supposed to make him calmer and more relaxed before the trial started. But since he kept looking at each passerby, trying to spot a familiar face in vain, he was _not _calm.

By the time he had gotten back to the pier both Thomas and Laura had disappeared. Thomas was most likely dead. The police had found his blood on the pier. Judging from the location of the blood, he had hit his head as he went over the railing, but police divers couldn't find his body. There was no sign of Laura, and no way of knowing for sure if she was alive or dead.

Fenton flat out refused to believe that she was dead. She had come too far, grown too much, had too much to do, to be dead. But during the past six months, he had expected some sign of her – a phone call, a note, a postcard, an encounter on the street. Even if he meant nothing to her, she could at least do him the courtesy of letting him know. _ Wouldn't I know? _He thought. _Wouldn't I know if she were dead?_

He bent down to pick up his briefcase and placed it in his lap. He placed his newspaper in it and then upset his glass of water on the table as he saw the woman who had taken the seat across from him.

"You're one of the easiest people to sneak up on," she said. "You get distracted by the littlest things or are always lost in thought."

"Where the hell have you been?" he demanded, trying to look cool while mopping up the mess with several napkins. "Do you know how worried I've been?" He had imagined this encounter several times in his head. In each of his scenarios, his opening comment had been something like "_it's about time you showed up" _or_ "can I buy you a cup of coffee?". "_Where the hell have you been?" revealed far more of his true feelings than he would have liked.

"Here, there, and everywhere," she said flippantly, passing him some additional napkins. "I had some things to take care of, but I saw that the trial was starting this afternoon and made sure I got back in time."

Deciding that the direct approach was the best, she became serious and plunged in. "I was expecting there to be some mention of me in the news reports."

"There won't be." He kept his eyes fixed on the table. "I told the cops and the D.A. you weren't involved at all." He felt her start in surprise and transferred his gaze to her mouth and chin.

"When I was locked in that cellar, I thought you were really engaged and had betrayed…whatever." He spoke in a rush. "And when I found out you hadn't, I was mad that I had even thought that. Especially after what you went through and what you did for us, I thought you deserved a second chance. So I said you were never there. The rest of the gang think you escaped before the police arrived and that they are protecting you by remaining silent. Eric has some questions about his son, but at this point, he has no idea if you are still alive and has never mentioned you."

"I can't believe anything made you lie to the police." She was truly touched and astonished. What could she say to that?

"Me neither. There's a new PI that I'm going to start working with, Sam Radley. He's as straight as they come and I'm going to learn a lot from him. If he finds out, that would be it."

"Thank you," she said softly fiddling with the teacup that the waitress had brought her. "I will honor your trust."

The pleasant silence engulfed both of them as they observed the passers by. People seemed to walk with an extra spring in their step, a sense of purpose but also a commitment to enjoy life, to enjoy living. As the last noisy crowd turned around the corner, Laura looked at Fenton's jacket.

"What's going to happen at the trial?" she asked.

"Thanks to your information, Eric is being charged with planning to rob the Bayport Savings Bank, the Philadelphia robbery and a long list of money laundering, embezzlement and drug-related crimes. Thomas has disappeared –"

"He's dead," Laura interrupted. "He regained consciousness after you left and tried to kill me. We fought and he went over the pier."

"They found the blood, but no body," said Fenton. "So we've assumed he was dead but kept our eye out just in case. Anyway, the rest are being charged as accomplices. I'm recommending leniency for Jim and testifying on his behalf, so he should be out in about 12 years. I put the disc in the warehouse and wiped the prints, so thanks to you we have enough evidence to prosecute everyone."

"I should be charged too," Laura said. "If I hadn't met you, I would be charged with them or dead like Thomas."

"No," said Fenton. "If I hadn't met you, I'd be at the bottom of the ocean, and the Camarazzi syndicate would still be functioning."

Laura sipped her tea. The conversation had gone well, but Fenton wasn't going to like what she had to say next.

"Until I saw Thomas die, I planned to disappear for good. Just show up once in a while to see you and live out my life without consequences. But if I did that, I'd end up back to my old ways and you'd have to hunt me down or I'd be dead like him." She paused briefly. "You didn't think I lied to you? Or wondered where I was the last six months." It was a question she had pondered during long, sleepless nights.

"No," Fenton said calmly. "I would know if you were dead, and I know you didn't lie to me. I did wonder where you were and expected to hear from you before now. But I also figured that you needed your time and space to think and would show up when you were ready. When push came to shove, you do the right thing. You care about other people, and think they are human, not tools or playthings. That's what separates you from them more than anything."

"Maybe," she said. "But if I'm going to make a break with my past, it needs to be complete. So I've made sure it would be."

"What are you saying?" Fenton sat upright.

"I tracked down the Camarazzi operations that I already knew existed but didn't know the details about. And then I infiltrated as many other groups as I could –embezzlers, bank robbers, money-laundering to get as much information possible. It's all going to the authorities this afternoon. I wanted to let you know first."

Fenton knew that Laura had changed, but he hadn't expected this. His imagination filled with the possibilities of them working together. They could open a practice, track down criminals and learn things from each other. With his brains and her skills, they'd make one fabulous and unbeatable team. His attention returned to what she was saying.

"It felt so good!" Laura said. "It felt so good to do something for good, knowing that I was working for a good cause. I don't even care if I have to go to jail anymore. What I liked about stealing and the criminal life even more than the money was the sense of being alive, always being in control of a situation, relying on my wits and being part of a team. But after what Thomas did to me, there's no way I could work with someone as a thief again. We were taught that there was honor among thieves, but there isn't any."

"Of course not!"

"There used to be," she retorted. "I know what Jim did." She sobered quickly. "But I got careless, Fenton. I temporarily covered my tracks but within another couple of days, they'll know it was me."

Fenton paused. "Two more days?"

"Right."

"And you have evidence of everything you found?"

"Yes, and backup copies. If anything happens to me, the D.A.'s office will receive them."

"Laura," Fenton said. "I know it's a big step, but have you thought about trying for a pardon?"

"A pardon?" she eyed him, wondering if he had his head screwed on straight. "Wouldn't I have to go into witness protection or something? Give up my entire life and live as Ms. Jones?"

"Maybe not," he said. "We could see if you could... ah…if you could stick around here. Since you've been all over the country, I don't think the location is the top concern."

"A pardon," she repeated. "I never imagined that could ever be possible. You don't know what I've done…"

"Have you killed anyone?" he demanded brusquely. He was pretty sure she hadn't, but he needed to know, more importantly, he needed her to know.

"No!" she said. "But I've been responsible for unsolved robberies and known about plenty of people who were silenced because they wanted to leave or were getting too close."

"You'll have to deal with your own conscience," he said soberly. "But legally, providing the information before was enough to secure a pardon for you. With this new information, we can take down a lot of other people. It's enough to guarantee you a pardon five times over, especially if you wanted to work for law enforcement. It will take them a while to trust you, but once they do, they'll love having you on their side."

She shook her head. "Fenton, I'm sorry. I know that's what you want. But I couldn't do it."

"What do you mean?" For the first time since she had sat down, the two of them made eye contact. His eyes sparkled with possibilities, her eyes tried to convince him of where she was.

"If I did that, there is no way I could guarantee I wouldn't slide back and become who I was. Being around people with no morals, people who would sell out their entire families for practically nothing, easy money being available without hurting anyone… The temptation would always be there. The entire time I was undercover, there were moments when I wanted to run away and forget everything, to start life anew without atoning for previous mistakes. The only thing that kept me going – was you. Sometimes I'd think about how you turned down Eric's offer. But that wasn't enough! So instead I'd think about how hurt you'd be, how you'd track me down to the ends of the earth if I didn't come back."

She saw the incomprehension on Fenton's face and sighed. "You don't understand. You're a good person, Fenton. You've never been drawn by those kinds of things."

"No," he said. "I don't understand. I don't understand why that prevents you from helping other people, from continuing to make right –" he stopped abruptly.

"Nothing can make it right," Laura said coldly. "Even if we find someone who's willing to grant the pardon. Nothing can take away all those things I did"

"Jeff, the task force guy, in heaven with Camarazzi on trial. He'll fight for the pardon. But I'm sorry for saying that, you're right, nothing can fix what you did. But you can start again and do no more harm."

"I do want to start again," she agreed. "But that's the only way I can do it. Even though you trust me, the only way I can be sure of honoring that trust is by leaving that part of me completely behind."

"Someday?" he asked, after wrestling with himself, wanting to argue but knowing it was pointless. "I can accept that is who you are now. But maybe someday?"

"Someday," she said.

* * *

That evening, Fenton admitted that he had lied to the authorities regarding Laura's involvement in the Camarazzi syndicate, and detailed the reasons why. Jeff made it abundantly clear that if Fenton ever did anything like that again, Jeff himself would know about it, and he would make it his personal mission to see that Fenton was sent to jail.

Laura had long interviews with a parade of law enforcement officials who would not be satisfied that she was genuine until they met her personally. All of her information was double-checked and triple-checked for veracity, and she passed two polygraph exams. Over the next six months, staggered arrests were quietly made so they could not be traced back to one source.

Thanks to her hard work and the efforts of Jeff and Fenton, Laura Basden received her pardon four months after she had turned herself in. By that time, various criminal gangs had discovered that she had compromised their security, but they never made any connection between her and a relatively recent series of arrests. To protect her identity, the pardon was never made public or entered in police records. For all intents and purposes, Laura Basden, right-hand operative in the Camarazzi syndicate, sole remaining member at large, disappeared and was never heard from again.

"Frank" and "Joie" resumed where they had left off as Fenton and Laura and went out for a celebratory dinner the day after the pardon came through (they had bent or broken too many rules already to take a risk being caught violating a "conflict of interest" policy). Laura had found someone she could be honest with about all her imperfections and past, but could still see the good in her and help her live up to the best of herself. Fenton had found someone who understood and supported the demands of his job and would never ask him to give it up. He was confident of two things. 1) That he would do everything within his power to protect her and 2) that she could handle herself in a tough situation, as every private investigator's wife should be able to.

Six months later, they were married.

Somehow, that "someday" kept getting put off. Laura soon got a job as a librarian and three years later, their firstborn son arrived. The births of Frank and Joe represented the future for Laura Hardy, who became even more determined to leave Laura Basden behind. And so it stayed that way for many years, until one phone call changed everything.


	20. Chapter 20

Red: When Cherylann posted the snippet about "John Daley's brother" in Fire and Ice, my response was WHOSE brother?? And I had to go hunting through the story for "John Daley" to figure out who he was. We can share the dunce cap!

Thanks to everyone for the great reviews and support. Your anticipation made me work at completing this chapter. It is the last one, with an epilogue to follow.

Disclaimer: I'm just using the character for this last chapter and one more epilogue, thank you.

* * *

The saga didn't end at the Hardy household with cups of hot chocolate, comfortable chairs and familiar surroundings. Instead, it ended at Bayport hospital.

Most of the hospital staff knew Frank and Joe Hardy by sight. By the time Frank was 18 and Joe was 17, they had been admitted to the emergency room more than most people are admitted to any hospital department throughout their lifetime. At 20 and 19, Frank and Joe were at the hospital again; but this time as concerned visitors instead of patients.

Fenton and Laura had been admitted at 2 AM for observation. Their oxygen levels were still low as a result of the carbon monoxide poisoning. Fenton had also been treated for the various injuries he had received. Frank and Joe had been examined by the doctors who ultimately decided not to admit them, but had given them strict instructions to drink lots of fluids, get a lot of rest, and report back if they had the slightest headache or felt dizzy. But the warning proved unnecessary as neither Frank nor Joe had any intention of leaving.

As the sun was beginning to rise, Frank and Joe stretched out on uncomfortable couches in the waiting room and waited. Callie and Vanessa had told them what little they knew about their mother and all the events of the past few days before they had fallen asleep in padded chairs. Once in a while a night nurse passed by, but except for that, the entire hospital wing was completely quiet. The nurse had told them that they could see their parents when they were ready for them, but that had been a half an hour ago.

Even though their girlfriends had filled in some of the blanks, Frank and Joe had too many unanswered questions to sleep peacefully. All they could do was wait together, wait until the two people who had the complete answers were available. And there was no one they would rather be waiting with than a brother.

"Your Dad's sleeping," Laura's soft voice came from behind them. Sitting up, they turned to look at her. She looked extremely tired, but otherwise looked as she always had, except for the can of oxygen she was dragging behind her.

"How bad was it?" Frank asked, looking both anguished and frustrated. "I-"

"Concussion, bruised ribs, and some torn tendons," Laura answered. "Thankfully, he will make a full recovery. It was _not _your fault," she continued and put up a hand to forestall Frank's next comment. "The fault lies with Thomas alone. There is nothing you or I could have done."

Looking at his mother, Frank saw that she faulted herself just as much if not more than he blamed himself for his father's suffering. That thought was strangely comforting. If she knew exactly how he felt, but still maintained that neither of them could have changed anything, then strangely enough, he could believe her. Just as he was about to move on to the next topic on his mind, Joe got there first.

"Why didn't you tell us?" he asked. "Maybe not when we were kids, but at least before we went to college. All those years, you just…"

At the sound of his voice, both Callie and Vanessa woke up. Yawning, they turned their faces toward Laura to see what she would say.

"Guilt," Laura said simply. "And fear of rejection. I didn't want you to think any less of me than you did before you knew."

"But you were pardoned," Frank said logically. "You helped the police catch a lot of people. And, all of your crimes were forgiven. Why would we think any less of you?"

"Forgiven?" Laura said. "Regardless of any official pardon, that is what I did. Yes, I changed, but I'm not going to pretend I didn't do what I did."

"How could you think we would have rejected you?" Joe asked. "You're our mother, no matter what you did before we were born."

"You are also detectives with the black and white view of the world that the job requires," Laura said, glancing at Frank. "Now you're old enough to understand that the world isn't always like that, but would you have understood that when you were younger?"

"That's not the real reason," Joe said standing up and looking at her directly. "There's more."

Except for the distant drone of a television, the room fell silent as four blue eyes fought a silent staring battle before the older pair yielded to the younger.

"I was hiding from myself as well. Trying to pretend that part of me never existed, and I could live my life as if it never happened. When Frank was born, it was a new start, and I did everything I could to keep it that way. And part of that was never talking about it, never starting down the path that could lead me back to Laura Basden, Camrazzi operative."

"The last few days have been hard," she continued in an uncharacteristic understatement. "I've gone back and forth between Laura Hardy and Laura Basden. There were times when I felt like I had completely turned back to my old ways, and times when I could think of nothing except rescuing you and feeling guilty about having involved Callie and Vanessa into this whole mess."

"Collig was right, you would never have joined him," Joe said firmly.

"He was right, but I wasn't sure. I needed to know that myself, and I found that out earlier tonight."

"What we do doesn't bother you?" Joe asked, needing to make sure. "After all, we're tracking down people who uh…"

"Some are how I used to be, others are far worse. And Fenton asked me the same thing when you two started solving your own cases," Laura told them. "Nothing made me more proud than seeing you two work together to bring criminals to justice. Nothing. If you two had chosen a different life, I would have been happy with that, too. But when I see what you two are doing, I almost think you're making up for what I did before."

"You've never said anything," Joe said wonderingly. "Not once."

"I wanted to. But I always held myself back. If I had told Joe how to open a locked door in about thirty seconds flat and taught Frank how to hack into the DMV database, wouldn't you two have been curious about how a librarian picked up those skills?"

"You can hack into the DMV mainframe?" Frank asked, raising his eyebrow. "It took Phil months to figure out how."

"You and Joe are what Fenton and I could have been," Laura said. "A team. And nothing will ever change that."

"What you could have been," Frank repeated. "But why did you give up your life for Dad and become a librarian? I would never ask Callie to do that for me."

"I'd kill you if you tried," Callie interjected.

"A different era," she said. "There were not as many opportunities for women back then as there are now. But I didn't give it up just for him. I gave it up for myself, and for you. Like I said earlier, I didn't trust myself enough to work undercover permanently."

"What about now?" Frank asked. "What will you do now?"

"Fenton and I talked a little bit, and he mentioned he could use some help with some of his cases. We'll see…"

"Did it really take you six days to write those computer science notes?" Frank couldn't remember ever feeling this nervous in her presence before; including the time he had knocked over a candle and set the living room rug on fire when he was seven. But his mother had been honest with him; he owed it to her to be honest in return.

"Yes," she said and laughed. "Technology has advanced and changed. I had to look up some of the specifics on the internet. But I do remember how hard that stuff was when I first started learning it, so I did what I could."

"Mom, when I found out, I was angry," he admitted. "I called you and Dad hypocrites. Even when he tried to explain the whole situation to me, I still didn't quite believe him… And then you almost died..." his voice trailed away.

"I'm sorry," he said and frantically tried to get his thoughts in order. But when it came down to it, there were only two things he needed to say "I was a jerk and… I love you!"

"You were hurt, Frank," Laura answered. "You weren't being a jerk. And I love you, too!"

Laura reached across the table for a piece of paper and began to draw quietly. Her brow furrowed in concentration, she was able to produce a remarkable likeness of Joe, Vanessa, Frank and Callie. "I haven't drawn in at least 20 years. I was afraid that it would cause me to revert back to who I was. But, nothing can do that now."

"So," Frank said after casting an approving eye at the picture. "The professor mentioned this complex problem in class the other day…"

Joe decided to escape before they started comparing computer programming strategies. As Callie and Vanessa left to call their parents, he wandered down the hall and took a seat in the only available chair located in his father's hospital room. Fenton's breathing was slow and steady and the monitor showed a strong pulse. The eyes that had recently regained their spark were now closed.

Looking at Fenton, Joe was reminded of how many times he had woken up in the hospital to see his father's concerned face peering down at him. Now that their positions were reversed, Joe could only marvel how his parents could have gone through this so many times, never asking him to stop what he was doing. If he ever had a kid himself, he would steer his son or daughter toward a less dangerous occupation. Something like bungee jumping, skydiving, or being a racecar driver.

"Joe," a familiar voice interrupted his thoughts. "Joe!" it repeated insistently.

"Dad," he said sitting upright in his chair and looking at Fenton's open eyes. "How are you feeling?"

"Fine," Fenton lied, even though his ribs ached. "His eyes wandered to the empty bed next to his.

"Where's-"

"Having a talk with Frank," Joe answered. "I left when it started to get technical."

Fenton grinned and his face filled with color. "How's Frank taking it?" he asked.

"He's come around," Joe answered. "Seeing as how Callie did her best to set him straight earlier, and you both almost died, he's come around. He's now thrilled to be able to talk techie with someone in the family."

"Good," Fenton said. "Maybe she'll stop badgering me to transfer my files to the computer."

Joe got up and filled a plastic cup with water from the sink. He walked over to the bed and helped Fenton sit up and take a sip from the glass of water. Sighing in relief, Fenton laid his head back on the pillow.

"Joe, I'm sorry," he said so softly that Joe almost didn't hear him.

"Sorry!" exclaimed Joe, looking astonished and setting the water down on the nearest flat surface. "Whatever for?"

"If I had told you two earlier, if I had insisted that she tell you, if I hadn't gotten so distracted and let him rattle me, if-"

"If we had never gone to the mall, Iola would still be alive," Joe said harshly, but with sympathy in his eyes. Fenton was so shocked that he stopped speaking.

"We blame ourselves when things happen to people we love," said Joe. "It just shows how much we love them, not that we could have or should have done anything differently."

Hearing Joe say that warmed his heart. It had taken Joe a long time to return to any semblance of his own self after Iola Morton's murder, and that event would remain with him for the rest of his life. It had taken the combined efforts of Frank and Vanessa to give him a reason to keep living, and by that remark, it sounded as if he had finally started to realize that he bore no blame whatsoever for that incident. But their situations were not the same.

"It is my job as your father, as a person, to look after my children in every possible way," said Fenton through clenched teeth. "And if I had not gotten too caught up in what happened 27 years ago and kept my head, we could have found a way to escape earlier."

"The situation affects you differently when it's personal," Joe said "And when the decision is made, you go with what feels right, what is the best thing to do at the time. There is absolutely no way you could have told us earlier, Dad. She was the one who had to tell us."

"I would have lied for both Vanessa and Iola," Joe continued with conviction. "Even if it meant going to jail"

"But you never would have doubted either of them," Fenton countered.

"Who knows? Perhaps I would have," Joe said. You didn't doubt her at the end, Dad. And I don't think your earlier reaction was really because of doubt, I think it was because you were worried for her, frustrated that you couldn't be there. And even when Frank and I doubted it, you knew that mom would make the right decision and come and find us."

"That's right," Frank said from the door. "And you made me believe it, too." He and Laura had agreed to put their discussion off until later. They were both way too sleepy.

"We had agreed that someday we would work together," Laura said getting back into bed. "And it turns out that today was the day."

"We didn't quite think it would happen like this though," Fenton said smiling at his wife.

"No," she agreed. "But, it would have happened in some way, even if Thomas never answered the picture. Later today, it will be time for us to go-,"

"Home!" Joe finished.

"And when we get home," Laura said sternly, "Your Dad and I will go over his current and past unsolved cases while you will be grounded for the entire weekend."

"Me? What did I do? My life hasn't been hard enough already, and now I'm grounded?" Joe protested.

"I heard about your drinking," Laura said glaring at him and refusing to be diverted. "Even though I strongly suspect you won't do _that _again, I thought we had raised you to know better!"

"You told her," Joe said looking accusingly at his father who threw up his arms in mock surrender and refused to interfere. Joe was on his own.

"Now mom," said Joe turning back to Laura with characteristic puppy dog eyes and the trademark Hardy charm, "you really aren't going to judge me based on what I did when I was young, are you?"


	21. Epilogue

And so we come to the epilogue, and my chance to thank everyone who's been along for the ride. Especially KCS for constant reviews and support, Laura Hardy for suggestions and revisions so each chapter felt better than the last, Red Hardy, Cherylann Rivers and Whitetigers for detailed and hilarious reviews, Amblewat, Josie Hardy, Angry Penguin, Wishingstars and everyone who has read but not reviewed the story and gotten this far. Thank you! Oh, and this chapter is NOT meant to be a comment on UCLA or crab cakes.

Disclaimer: I am ready to return these characters to their owners safe and sound (but not completely the same).

* * *

Epilogue – three months later:

"Slacking off?" Fenton inquired teasingly as he walked into his study. "I didn't realize my newest partner was prone to bouts of laziness."

Laura laid the thick tome on the desk and turned her swivel chair around to look at her husband. "It's for Frank," she defended herself. "He and Callie are going to be home for the holidays soon. He'll have questions for me, and I don't want him to know just yet that I won't be able to keep up with him much longer. What did Sam find out?"

"Simon's mother's maiden name is Reno," Fenton said, grinning from ear to ear. "We're finally getting somewhere."

Laura got up and walked to the chart posted on the opposite wall of the windowless study. They had slowly constructed a web on a whiteboard over the last month until they had a visual of how individual figures in their investigation were connected. Fenton joined her as they added one more line and another name, and their thoughts raced along the same path.

The case they were currently working on had been brought to their attention by Con Riley – and Con wasn't even sure there was a case at first. His friend Sandy's grandmother had died. Before her death, the grandmother had informed the entire family what their inheritance should be. When the will was finally read, the total amount of assets was around 5,000 less than what they had expected. Although the family did not want to seem unduly greedy, they had approached Con for a recommendation of a financial investigator who could find out what had happened to the money. And Con had referred them to Fenton and Laura.

An examination of tax forms had revealed that the income and investments were less than what the family had expected to inherent, but there was absolutely nothing wrong with that – the grandmother could have decided to spend some extra cash. But Sandy was adamant that it wasn't the case, Con vouched for her judgment, and there was no record of a bank withdrawal so Fenton, Sam and Laura kept looking. Laura had obtained names of the lawyer's clients from an overly talkative receptionist and after a long investigation, a pattern began to emerge. Several clients at the firm had similar stories. It was always a relatively insignificant amount of money, but when they added it up, it looked like someone was skimming around 50,000 per year from people's wills. Fenton had zeroed in on a young paralegal, Simon, in the office as being the likely candidate. And now it looked like Simon might be connected to a disenfranchised branch of Sandy's family, giving him a strong motive.

"Time to ask Simon a few questions," Fenton said. "He's had connections with everybody. The entire setup is so obvious and simple. He just relied on not dealing with large enough amounts of cash to attract attention and never would have if Sandy hadn't requested an investigation."

"There's no way a paralegal could have done all this on his own," Laura said thoughtfully. "A lawyer as well as a bank official is probably involved as well."

"Time to pay him a visit at his favorite restaurant this afternoon," Fenton said. "We have enough time before Vanessa's tournament tonight."

"Uh-huh," Laura said. Vanessa was entering her first Aikido tournament that night and had invited Fenton and Laura to watch. "We'll be there at seven when it starts." She turned around and surveyed the small room.

Fenton's desk was in the corner where it had always been. The filing cabinets had been moved and a second desk had been installed in the opposite corner where Laura now spent much of her time. One flowerpot now stood on each desk and a deep red circular rug covered the middle of the floor. Where the bare wall had previously stood behind them, a whiteboard, now showing the outline of their current case, had been added.

The changes had not been easy for either of them. Fenton's workspace was always neat and meticulous. Laura's was rather messy. Although she had always kept the rest of the house in perfect order, she was seemingly incapable of keeping her desk neat. Fenton stuck with his yellow notepads and extended filing system. Laura kept most of her notes on the computer with backups and only kept a few files in her drawers. She proceeded through systemic analysis while Fenton went by his gut. And, after spending one entire day in his Spartan, windowless office, she had felt like her head was going to explode.

Even though they had lived in the same household for years, they had never really realized how much their daily habits had varied and just how intensely the house had been divided into "his" and "her" space until three months ago. But they were both determined to give it a shot.

He agreed to the rug, whiteboard, and flowerpots, but drew the line at painting the study or adding impressionist paintings to the walls. Furthermore, if she was going to be in his study, he argued, he still wanted dinner served at six o'clock. If that meant that he had to cook dinner and clean up after himself, then he was going to cook dinner for both of them and Laura better get used to not having everything exactly where she had last put it and eating crab cakes (which she eventually admitted didn't taste that bad).

She quickly realized that catching a thief is, in many ways, harder than being one. And, there were a lot of things she did not know how to do, from thoroughly interviewing suspects and witnesses to whom to call to get a quick answer to a question about an obscure federal law. But she was a quick learner and Fenton was a good and patient teacher. They were currently in the process of accommodating to each other's working styles, and even though there had been a few bumps along the way, it was working out.

More than once, they wondered just how Frank and Joe had managed to become such a good team and why things couldn't work out just as flawlessly for their parents. And then they realize that their sons had not become a good team, they just were a team. Everyone else, including themselves, had to work at it.

As Fenton picked up his private phone line to update Con on their progress, Laura went to answer the ringing phone in the hallway.

"Hello," she said. "Oh hi, Joe. Is everything ok?" Joseph Hardy practically never called home unless he was sick or something was wrong.

"Everything's fine mom," Joe said good naturedly. "I have a case that I can't quite solve by myself. I usually call Frank for this kind of thing, but he's busy with finals now and I thought I'd try you instead."

"Sure," said Laura quickly pulling up a chair next to the phone and looking around for a paper and pen. "What's the case?"

"Cheating," Joe said. "Although UCLA sees a few cases every year around finals, this is something more serious."

"People writing papers for other students, and students buying them on the internet?" Laura asked disapprovingly.

"Professors have a good handle on that," Joe said. "They buy papers themselves to see what they'll get. This is someone stealing the actual answers to exam questions and passing them around to students. The people who receive the answers always get them anonymously and get different sets with some answers wrong and some answers right, but always just enough to pass the exam or give a good enough answer to an essay question."

"How did you get involved?" Laura asked.

"A student finally blew the whistle and went to her class dean," Joe answered. "Someone slipped a set of answers to her chemistry exam in her mailbox. Instead of using them, she reported it. The Dean went to the head of judicial affairs who knew Dad, so they asked me to look into it because I'm less noticeable than a public safety officer."

"What have you discovered so far?"

"The people who are the most likely are four student workers in different departments. One in math, one in chemistry, one in history and one in physics. I overheard a conversation and think one student in particular is the one who passes them to others who distribute them anonymously. I've been tailing him as often as I can for the last couple of days, but still can't figure out how he does it."

"Does he have a routine?"

"Not really," Joe said. "He's in the dining hall by nine, he's one of the few people who eat a regular breakfast. He plays softball and almost always sits with teammates. And then he has calculus at 10, organic chemistry from 11 to 1:230, eats lunch, studies in the library for a few hours exercises before a 3 pm class and spends the evening after dinner hanging out or studying."

"Any people he sees everyday or-" she began, but Joe cut her off "Mom, I've been doing this for a while. Nobody he talks to regularly that he doesn't have a perfectly legitimate reason to talk to. Some are close friends, others are in classes. And at least while I've been around, he's never said anything incriminating."

"Ok, sorry," Laura said. Her sons had been doing this for longer than she had and would think like a detective more than she ever could. It was time for her to think like a former criminal. "I need you to go through his routine again," she said. "And I'll stop you if I need to."

"Nine o'clock in the dining hall, he sits with his teammates and they eat pancakes and they talk about what they did at the party last weekend."

"Ok, so are there any cleaning staff around the breakfast table?"

"No," Joe answered impatiently, wondering if he really should have just called Frank instead.

"Trash bins, ashtrays, potted plants?"

"Potted plants!" Joe said as she imagined him rolling his eyes. "You've got to be kidding."

"I could tell you stories, but I assume that means he hasn't been leaving papers under potted plants," she said.

"Well he could be, but I think I would have noticed."

"Remind me to show you a few tricks. Every time you notice something, I'll give you 20 bucks."

"Ok," Joe said, convinced by her tone more than anything else. "I'll keep a closer eye out."

And they went through Joe's suspect's entire day. The bridge where students gathered to smoke, the woman who always cleaned the bathroom at a certain time, the empty lockers at the fitness center…

"What about the library?" Laura asked.

"Librarians watch everyone like hawks," Joe answered. "If you speak above a whisper they give you really nasty looks. And don't even think about eating or drinking."

"So where does he sit?" Laura asked.

"The fiction sec- oh…"" Joe finished slowly.

"He's a chemistry major and he suddenly has time to read fiction?" Laura asked.

"Well, he doesn't read," Joe said. "He studies, gets up for a walk and browses for a while and then goes back to studying. Just like everyone else."

"Like everyone else?" Laura asked.

"Right," Joe said. "A study break, stress reliever. Some people talk on cell phones, others get something to eat, some browse the books, and everyone tries to keep their eyes open when they go back to the table. You're thinking that he's leaving the answers in certain books?"

"Possible," Laura answered. "Especially college where people have no time to read for fun."

"But it's a risk. Anyone else could just open a book by accident," Joe said.

"They could be misfiling them on purpose and putting them out of order so only they know where they are," Laura answered. "But it would have to be the same section or the librarian would notice and put it right back. Have you happened to notice any books he's been interested in?"

"_Ten Little Indians_ by Agatha Christie," he said. "_1984_ – George Orwell, something about the thirty years war and _North Dallas 40_ by Peter Gent."

Laura wrote down the titles on her notepad and let her mind wander for a few seconds. "Clever," she said with a little laugh. "Someone pays attention to their Dewey Decimal numbers."

"Huh?" Joe said. "10, 1984, 30 and 40 don't mean anything when you put them together."

"Unless you put a five before them," Laura clarified. "Then they form the Dewey Decimal classification codes. 510 is mathematics, 519 is probability, the 84 doesn't mean anything, 530 is physics and 540 is chemistry. He's leaving those answer keys in the corresponding fiction books. "

"Great!" Joe said. "I just have to look for the other titles and catch everyone red handed. Hopefully the case will get solved by next week before I leave for home."

"Looking forward to seeing you next week," Laura said as she heard Fenton wind up his conversation with Con Riley in the study.

"Yep, I brought my plane tickets today," Joe said and then he hesitated. "I'm actually thinking of finishing the year here and then transferring back to a college on the East Coast," he finally said.

"You definitely can if you want to," Laura said. "But I thought you were happy where you are."

"I love California," Joe replied. "But it's far away from Bayport, Vanessa, and Frank, and I can't just come home on the weekend."

"Why don't you see how it is when we're all home for a while?" Laura suggested. "I know Frank just wants what is best for you, as we all do. And from what I've seen, you've been happy where you are. Any more thoughts on your major?"

"I still haven't declared yet," Joe continued. "I can't decide if I want to study psychology, global studies, or something else."

"Lots of choices," said Laura. "But I guarantee it will be easier for you than it was for me. And I ended up in the best possible place."

"Love you."

"Love you."

Laura smiled as she hung up the phone and looked at herself in the hall mirror. Laura Basden was gone forever, buried in New York City with the rest of her past. In her place was Laura Anne Hardy, private detective/librarian, wife and partner of Fenton Hardy and the mother of Frank and Joe Hardy.


End file.
